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Every time I sit down to play a new game, it rears its ugly head. I'm not talking about some beastly creature with glowing red eyes, grasping claws and gnashing teeth, but it's certainly a horror I've grown to know well and fear completely. It's humongous, nasty and damn-near impossible to kill.

Some call it "The Unscalable Mountain." In parts of India it's known as "The Growing Fiend." I met a guy in Georgia once who called it "Harpo."

To the rest of us, it's simply known as "The Backlog."

I returned home from Christmas vacation last night, unpacked and sat down for a nice, long, relaxing evening with the shiny new copy of Battlefield 3 Santa was kind enough to leave in my stocking. It was about that time I felt my eyes being drawn to the bookshelf occupying the right wall of my living room, where the monster is most commonly spotted.

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This happens every time I set my sights on a new game rather than break out something I already own. A sort of repressed guilt wells up in my stomach and forces my mind to settle on that shelf housing the titles I have not yet gotten around to playing. Those games I picked up on sale, discounted on the Target end cap or marked down so low I simply could not force myself to just walk away.

"It's not so bad," I tell myself. "There are only a handful of unplayed games staring back at me."

But I'm only looking at the head of the beast. Sure, I've done a decent job of keeping up with the current gen library. Of all those games still in their cases on the shelf, only a handful of them are still in their shrink wrap, still waiting to be played.

But then the monster starts to crawl out from the depths, revealing its true size. After scanning the six or so untouched games from the current generation, my eyes fall on the binder housing all of my games from the last generation. Once this latest set of consoles took off, PlayStation 2 and Xbox titles dropped down to just a few bucks a pop, so of course I picked up everything I could get my hands on. I remember snagging a copy of Rogue Galaxy for a song. A literal song!

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And since I skipped over the Game Cube, the Wii gave me a chance to collect all of those games I simply missed out on through that particular console's lifespan.

And let's not even discuss the fact that, out of all of those damn games I got for next to nothing, how many of them are epic RPGs. Alright, fine, we'll discuss it. There are 15 freaking RPGs in that binder. Fifteen! I counted. That's 15 games with storylines that will take a good 60 hours to get through apiece, and that's not even counting all of the other games crammed in that binder.

My pulse quickened and my throat tightened as I considered all of this physical media I own but have never actually played, which inevitably turned my thoughts to the computer and my PS3's hard drive, where multiple sales have led me to purchase another couple dozen titles I have yet to dive into. I know I'll never get around to playing that copy of Just Cause 2, but for one dollar and fifteen cents (I'm exaggerating, obviously. But not by much) during the Steam holiday sale, how could I afford not to get it?

Now I've started doing the math in my head. All of those games I've owned for months -years, even--that I never got around to playing and here I am gearing up to play a new game I got just 24 hours ago. Don't those other games deserve to be played? Why did I buy them if I knew I wouldn't have the time for them? How can I be looking forward to new titles I'll likely play immediately after purchasing them when I've got enough unplayed games in my house to keep any sane person entertained for a couple of years?

Like this, but with movies, comics, games and stuff

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That's about the time the panic sets in and I realize I'm drowning in a sea of entertainment. My thoughts turn from video games to the other things in my house--books, movies, comics--that I simply haven't gotten around to yet. I gorge myself on this stuff and still can't manage to keep up with what I've collected. For whatever reason, this is about the time I start thinking about the house work that needs to get done, articles I should be writing and other more "responsible" pursuits I should be focusing on instead.

I feel like I've committed a crime and I'm mad at myself for continuing to fuel that backlog fire over and over again. I tell myself I'm going to stop; rein it in and simply enjoy what I already have. But like any good addict, I know I'm only lying to myself. I'll see Arkham City drop down to $20 and snatch it up in an instant. "Can't pass up a price like that!"

Eventually, the terror starts to subside. My pulse returns to normal, my breathing becomes steady and I realize that, really, I'm beating myself up over nothing. Yeah, that's money I could have saved for a rainy day, but at least it was spent on something I love. And since the vast majority of it was at a deep discount, at least I know I haven't ridden my bank account into the ground because of my inability to overlook World of Goo for $1.50.

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I understand that I'll never get to all of these games but, by god, I will cram in as many as I can. And what's the point of worrying yourself to death over too much of a good thing? Unless that thing is physically harmful, that is. Or Pokemon.

The important thing is to play what you can, when you can, and just let yourself enjoy it. If you're too busy worrying about what you'll never get around to, you'll never appreciate what you're actually doing right now.

I had to remind myself of that again last night, which seems to be the only way to send the backlog monster back to its cave. I know it will be back someday but, for the time being, my gaming conscience is clear.

I took a deep breath, turned on my console, and got to enjoying Battlefield 3.

Infinite Ammo is a weekly column by Ryan Winslett about video games, the industry that makes them and the people who play them. He can be stalked via his blog at staticechoes.com and followed on twitter @RyanWinslett.