bite sized: josh's 2025 game plan

Hey, loggers. Welcome back to another episode of Love the Backlog Breakdown. It's. But it's not a full episode. This is a bite sized breakdown, which means it's just a shorter version. I've just got one or two thoughts, really. One thought, and I'll explain it a little bit to throw out at you. It's just me. It's your buddy, Josh. Hopefully we're buddies. I'd like to be your buddy, maybe, possibly, if I don't upset you. I don't think this episode's gonna upset anyone. Although at most, I don't think I will cause any offense. But at most you might just say, well, that was completely pointless and that's not how I want to play video games. And that's fine. That's fine. You do you, I'll do me. And let me explain how I'm doing me this year. That sounds really weird. How I'm choosing video games to play this year is really kind of the onus of this episode. So we've talked, you know, brand new year. Although it's February by the time that this releases, which is kind of crazy. One month in the books of 2025. Hope it's been great for. I'm. I'm enjoying my 2025. It's pretty good. And I'm hoping for some even better things as the year continues to progress. But one of the things I wanted to do in terms of video games this year is to be more intentional about the games that I play. And we've set some things in. We've set up a few systems in order to do that. The first of which is just the beat down in general. We've talked about that. We already had a bite sized about that. Okay. Okay, Josh, we understand you're trying to beat down your backlog, right? I mean, that's. Hey, the podcast is called the Backlog breakdown for a reason. We have backlogs and we want to beat them down and we want to break them down as well. So I want to focus on my backlog of games that I own before purchasing new games. That's kind of an umbrella thing that we do here with this podcast. Okay, so how am I going to do it? Like I said, want to be intentional. I want to prioritize certain games because I have tons of games. I have tons of games on my backlog. So which ones am I going to choose? In the past, I've made lists of ideas of games to play and then as I near the end of a game, I'll Take a look at that list again and then decide the next one that I want to play. Okay, I'm doing, you know, something similar to that. But how am I actually prioritizing what makes that list in particular? On top of that, we've talked about as we rolled out the Beatdown rules, that we have a special this year called the Locked and Loaded Special, where you choose a specific. You choose a specific list of games that you want to finish over the next year, and you get some bonus points for that if you're playing the Beatdown. So how am I going about choosing these games is really just the explanation of this bite size. And hopefully it helps you as you think through your games. And here's where I get, you know, there might be the pushback, like, hey, I don't need any help. I'm just gonna play video games. Like, you don't have to think that deeply about it. Totally get it. Totally understand. I just, like I said, want to be intentional this year about the games that I play so that I am actively kind of beating down my backlog and deciding beforehand when I'm gonna play so I don't have to decide in the moment what the next game is necessarily. So I've got just a prior, a list of the games in a list of ways that I am prioritizing the games that I'm choosing this year. And I've got five kind of tiers of games and in five kind of sets of games that I'm throwing, actually only four. Only four sets. I can't read my notes where I just have assumed that it's been five. Well, actually the fifth would probably be the Locked and Loaded, but anyways, that might be a subset. That might be a 4.2. Whatever, doesn't matter. Okay, so the first set of games that I've thrown on this list, the first set of games, the kind of games that I'm prioritizing this year, are games that I bought last year. Okay, since this podcast, again, we want to focus on beating down the games that we already own, the games that are on our backlogs, then I want to focus on those. And what I've told myself over the past two years is that if I purchase new games, I ought to have an intention of playing those games within the next two years rather than just, oh, yeah, let's accumulate the game because it's on sale and then not really have any plan of when I actually want to play it, because that prevents me from just making impulse purchases. Because, hey, maybe there is that huge. Maybe there is a metaphor refund Tazio out there that I really want to play, but also, I know that's going to take 80 hours of my life to actually play it. So do I have 80 hours in the foreseeable future just because it's on sale? Okay, games are on sale all the time, but do I actually have the time in the foreseeable future? So I want to prioritize games that I've purchased over the past year. And so I. I have a few games like that that are on the list. I. I can think of Star Ocean, Second Story, R. I purchased that one last year, and I want to play it this year because I don't want to just mindlessly add games to the pile. So that's the first set of games that I want to finish this next year. The second one would be Patron Picks. Okay. I'm prioritizing the games that our patrons have chosen for me and Nate to play. Now, I don't necessarily have to play all of them to. To completion, all the way till. Till I finish the game. You know, just like I did with. With Death Stranding. Okay. It's a famous one. I talk about it all the time. But I want to prioritize these games so that we can have you guys on the podcast. You can come join us and we can share thoughts on the game. So that's. That's super fun. There's a community element to that. It's not just me playing alone and contemplating on the. The pros and cons of a game. It is also inviting a patron on to talk about these games. So. So those are going to be super fun. So that kind of goes without saying. And we have a. We have a good list of Patron picks this year. I want to say it's close to like, 10 games, so that's going to take up a sizable chunk of this year of my game time is just those Patron picks, but I definitely want to prioritize those. So games I bought in the past year. And then patron picks number three are games on our top 100 list. Okay. We have these. These top 100 games of. Of all time that we think everyone should play. Well, there are a few games on that list that I have never played or at least never finished. And so I want to prioritize those games because we're saying that they're some of the best of the best, so I should at least have some experiences with them. Right? And out of that, then we can make episodes about those games. Then we can you a bit more content and that sounds so generic but I mean do write ups and just have thoughts on these games in a more deep fashion, you know, because both of us, then both Nate and I would have things to say and have experiences with the game and, and be able to kind of summarize our thoughts on that. So I definitely want to prioritize games on that top 100 list that I haven't played. And then finally, this has been a fun category because it's not one that I've really thought about in the past, but because of, I would say kind of the ease of playing some of these games. I am also prioritizing my retro backlog. Okay. And the reason I'm prioritizing my retro backlog is one, you know, there's a bunch of retro games are not, you know, long 60 hour experiences. There are some, don't get me wrong, but they generally tend to be shorter, especially the older that you go. But also there are a bunch of games that I own, like physically own physical cartridges, cartridges, physical NES, SNES, Nintendo 64 cartridges in my basement right now of games that I've never finished that I had been fully intending to finish. Well, I don't know, I don't know what, you know, 15 year old Josh was thinking. It's been quite a while since, since I existed as 15 year old Josh. Um, but there are a number of games like I finished Goof Troop for Super Nintendo at the end of last year and that's a game that I've owned since I was probably a teenager and I just never finished it. I played it a bunch of times but I never actually finished it until recently and that was a really fun experience. And so this year I want to intentionally choose games from that retro backlog because they've been sitting there for so long and I think they'll also provide me some quick wins, you know, give me a little bit of wind in my sails as I, as I progress through this year. So hopefully this has given you a few ideas in what games do you want to prioritize over the next year. If you take a look at my the games I've chosen for the Locked and Loaded special, it's pulling from primarily from these games. Although I say that no patron picks are on the Locked and Loaded special because those are games I was intending to play this year anyway. I didn't want to kind of cross the streams there and kind of cheat by putting games that, oh, I have to play them by obligation so I'll get some Extra points for them. No, no, I think that's cheating. But I do have a good amount of my retro backlog. A good amount of my Locked and Loaded special games for this year are from my retro backlog. So you'll see Ninja Gaiden 2 is on there. What is it? Kirby's not Kirby's Avalanche, but Kirby's Dream Course is on there. And I have a few games like that that, yeah, I want to tackle them. And I know they're only a few hours long and it'll be fun to get through those games. And then also some of those top 100 games and games that I bought last year are on that list. The DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles 3. But also that's just a fantastic game and you should play it probably if you have a spare, you know, hundred hours this year or whatever it is. Anyways, I'm sure that one will have its own dedicated episod sometime because it's such a great game. Anyways, I do feel myself rambling here, but how are you approaching gaming in 2025? That's. That's the question that I have for you. Leave, you know, comment or reach out on social media. Linktree.com the backlog breakdown and hit us up. And are you being intentional with your games this year? Are you just like, yeah, no, I've got a backlog and I'll just pick as I. As I go along. And that's totally fine too. I've done that in the past. I've just found that if I curate that list, I'm more motivated to finish it. And so this is how I've curated this list for this year. And so I'm pretty stoked about what's coming over the next year. I'm pretty stoked and hopefully I'm stretching myself a little bit, at least with the amount of games that I want to play this year. Hopefully again that that little push of these lists will help me to kind of buckle down and play through a lot of these games. So I'll go through just, just for fun, I'll go through my Locked and Loaded special games because they pull from this list and just talk about it a little bit. Like I said, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 the DLC the Future Redeemed DLC. Super stoked for that. BioShock Infinite is a top 100 game that I've heard great things about. Played the first one, but not that one, and so stoked to play that. Slay the Spire is another one that at the tail end of our top 100 list. Nate really likes the game, so I want to check that one out. Dredge is one that I've just heard really good things about, so I'm stoked to dig into that. Contra 3 the Alien wars is a retro backlog game. Willow on NES. I've played that one a handful of times. I've started it with every intention to finish it and never actually got through it. Which is funny because it's a short game. But I will be getting through it in 2025. Maybe that'll be my next game. We'll see. Like I said, Kirby's Dream Course, Ninja Gaiden 2 Star Ocean 2nd story R is on here, and Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty is another one that I've heard great things about and so I've thrown it on this list. So those are just some of the games in addition to the Patron picks for the year, which I will not reveal until we have those episodes. But it's going to be a great year and hopefully it's going to be a great year for you as well. Again, let us know about your intentions for this year. Those are my intentions, and hopefully this has helped you as you're thinking through even even maybe just evaluating how much time do you have for games? What are you actually going to play this year? And or hey, you know what? I'm just playing video games in my free time. I don't have to think about it. That's fine too, but hopefully this has been helpful and I will catch you guys on the next episode. So till then, loggers keep beating down your backlogs and we'll keep breaking down the benefits.