Two Years Through and The Future

Last Monday, April 4, marked the 2 year anniversary of my blog, The Maximum Utmost.  You know, it really doesn’t immediately feel like it’s been two years of blogging.  But when I think about all that’s happened in my life since then, it’s hard not to realize how much time has passed and how much has changed.  I started the blog when I was fresh out of grad school and looking for work.  Those were some rough times, and TMU really provided a useful diversion when I needed one.  Later that year, in July, I finally had worthwhile job offer to accept, and in August, I moved from Atlanta to Cincinnati.  During that transitional period, I lost some momentum with the blog, but I’m reasonable happy with how I’ve been able to keep a decent number of posts flowing since then.  I’ve never once thought about quitting, and I still have a lot of plans for the future of this thing.

For whatever reason, this has been the most viewed image on the site.

In addition to the reviews, impressions, retrospectives, and idiosyncratic news I post, I’m also going to start filling out my Top 30 list.  If you’ve ever taken a gander at my About page (and my site stats indicate that you almost certainly haven’t), then you may have seen a work in progress list of the Top 30 games from my personal gaming history.  It’s a Top 30 list because (regrettably) that number is the closest “threshold” age I’m currently at.  These games aren’t necessarily the best games I’ve ever played or even necessarily the games I’ve sunk the most time into.  Rather, it is a list of the games that have probably had the biggest impact on my life.  So, for instance, while I’ve played way better online shooters than Gotham City Impostors, it makes the list, because I was playing a lot of it at a significant time in my life, and therefore it holds a lot of personal value to me.

The list is still a bit of a work in progress and is possibly subject to change.  I would say the first 20 or so games on the list were very easy to pick out.  These were obvious selections from my memories.  After that, it became more difficult to decide.  There were a lot of contenders for those final slots and narrowing it down was quite difficult.  Here is the list as it currently stands and in no particular order:

1. Super Mario Bros. 3
2. Donkey Kong (Game Boy 1994 Version)
3. Super Mario Land 2
4. Twisted Metal 2
5. Starsiege: Tribes
6. Deus Ex
7. System Shock 2
8. Dark Souls
9. Final Fantasy IX
10. Metal Gear Solid
11. Spelunky
12. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (and Knuckles)
13. Nox
14. Fallout: New Vegas
15. Jet Moto
16. Half-life
17. Hotel Dusk: Room 215
18. Team Fortress 2
19. Split/Second
20. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
21. Final Fantasy VII
22. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
23. Pokemon Blue
24. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
25. Final Fantasy X
26. Mario Kart Wii
27. Crash Team Racing
28. Onimusha
29. Alan Wake
30. Gotham City Impostors

Over the next year, I would like to write posts about each of these games discussing my thoughts and memories of them. I’ve only written about two of them so far, Super Mario Land 2 and Alan Wake, so this list is going to be a lot of work for me, but I’m pumped for the challenge.

Finally and last but not least, I’d like to thank everyone who’s taken the time over these two years to read my blog.  It’s meant a lot to me.  I don’t really have any friends in the real world to talk about games with, but I’ve been able to interact with a lot of great people through WordPress.  Thank you all.  I’m not the best conversationalist, so I fear sometimes I don’t adequately respond to your comments, but please know that I appreciate each and everyone of them I get.

Now for real finally, I have a bit of a fun trivia question for anyone who’s still reading.  The title “The Maximum Utmost” is actually a phrase taken from one of the Top 30 games I listed above.  Anyone care to take a guess at which one it is?