With the huge number of games that were released over the 2009 holiday season and the 2009 games that were pushed into early 2010, I’ve got a to-play list that’s just way too long. I’m currently spending a good bit of time replaying Trine on very hard difficulty, working towards those last few trophies. If I can finish the Tower of Sarek on very hard without dying once, I’ll have full completion on the game. I’m also roughly halfway through a second playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins, and just getting into the meat of Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. I’ve got a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for the DS which is supposedly coming in the mail, although you never can tell with EBay sellers. I was a huge fan of Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks looks to be more of the same.

There are also a number of games out there that I’m just dying to play. Chief amongst them is Heavy Rain, a game that I’ve been looking forward to from the day it was released. I loved Indigo Prophecy despite the plot derailment in the later portions of the game, and with all the thought I’ve put into the fact that Dragon Age was the first game in a long time to make me feel anything, I’m hopeful that Heavy Rain will achieve something similar.

Uncharted 2 is coming down in price – I can get a used copy for around $35 now, and it’s at the top of my EBay shopping list. Also high on that list is Retro Game Challenge, a DS game that I’ve heard a lot of good things about. It contains a number of different games made in a retro style. Old skool racers, RPGs, shooters and platformers which ostensibly maintain the old style of gameplay while removing the most annoying things about those games. All this is wrapped with the storyline of a 12-year-old sitting in front of a TV with his friend in the NES era, entering cheat codes and achieving high scores.

Another game I can’t wait to get my hands on is No More Heroes 2. I may wait for the price to come down a bit before I get a copy, but I was a big fan of the first one, and I’ve heard that the sequel removes all the flaws of the original and makes the gameplay a bit easier. Maybe I’ll be able to finish this one.

I’ve decided that the PC is the platform on which I want to play Batman: Arkham Asylum. It’s a GFW Live game, and while that interface annoys the crap out of me, its one benefit is that I can get XBox achievements. And since GFW/360 achievements, PSN Trophies, and Steam achievements are the only achievements that mean much of anything to me, I’ll be happy to add to my collection.

From early on, I’d decided that I did not want to play Demon’s Souls. A game that everyone lauds as the most difficult and frustrating game they’ve played since Ninja Gaiden doesn’t sound appealing to me. But when I heard the Brainy Gamer gamers’ confab folks discussing the game on Michael Abbott’s four part best of 2009 podcast series, I grew intrigued. Many of them cited Demon’s Souls as their favorite game of 2009, despite the game’s oppressive difficulty. I pondered this as I played through Trine’s Tower of Sarek level twenty or thirty times, trying to pass the level without dying once. Maybe I am up for it after all. In the end, I determined that if I do try the game, I’d be best off renting it rather than buying. Less commitment that way.

But I don’t generally rent games. Gamefly’s monthly plan runs $16 or $23 depending on whether you want one or two games. That’s a bit more than I’m willing to pay given that I don’t always want to have a game rented at any given time. I may be better off trying to get a copy from a Blockbuster for a weekend. I haven’t rented anything from Blockbuster in over fifteen years, so that should be interesting.

Other games I might consider renting include the new Wii Punch-Out!, which seems like a quick playthrough, the newest Prince of Persia, which I’m very hesitant to play given how much I hated Sands of Time and The Two Thrones, House of the Dead: Overkill, Dead Space: Extraction, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles. I’m excited to play Darkside Chronicles, but I’m not convinced that it’s going to be a keeper.

So far, this is a long list. But while I’ve listed all the games about which I’m most excited to play, there are plenty more on my radar.

A Boy and his Blob is a game that looks like a lot of fun. And while it’s not top on my list, I’d really like to try it for some point, and it’s likely more than a rental. Maybe I’ll get to it before next Christmas. Ditto InFamous. Looks good, but not high priority.

Cold Fear is a game I’ll likely download from a service like Direct2Drive or Steam, depending on where I can get it cheapest. It’s not a triple-A title, but it looks interesting, and I don’t expect it to cost much. In the end, if it disappoints, I can stop playing and I won’t feel as though I’ve lost much.

I’ll probably end up getting Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box and Henry Hatsworth in another year or so once they’re bargain basement titles on EBay. I expect to enjoy them, but I’ve got DS games coming out my ears right now, so I’m in no rush.

There are also a metric butt-ton of sequels about which I’m less than excited. Bioshock 2? Meh. Mass Effect 2? Sure, I’ll try it eventually. Assassins Creed 2? Yeah – I’ll get to it. My feelings about Killzone 2 and Wolfenstein are similar. All games I’d like to try at some point. We’ll see if I ever get around to them.

Lastly, there are a few games I expect to be released later this year. I’ll definitely be picking up Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening when it’s out. Ditto Super Mario Galaxy 2. I loved the first one. Starcraft 2 is a game I’ll try to buy on day one if I can. If The Last Guardian comes out this year, I’ll be as excited about it as I am about Heavy Rain, and I’ll get that one ASAP. God of War 3 and Final Fantasy 13 look potentially good, but I’ll likely wait until 2011 to pick them up.