2011 in Review

Well we're now six days into 2012, and who remembers 2011 eh? That's the fast moving world of the internet for you but I still wanted to put out some sort of thoughts on the years entertainments, and after a brief delay caused by the year starting with the house being broken into, here it is.

I've got to start with the podcast. Dissecting Worlds has now put out nearly 40 episodes and not only have I had a fantastic time making it (because arguing with one of my oldest friends is always fun!) but I've also met a lot of new people and been pointed at a lot of new media to try. I've still little to no idea how many people actually listen but meeting the few who approached us at Thought Bubble was a great (but slightly weird-feeling) experience. And this year we've had a load of guests on, and they've all been great, lovely people. Cliched but true!

Entertainment wise the best thing we did the whole year was quit World of Warcraft. Not out of any real antipathy for a game me and Z have played a lot, and will almost certainly go back to in the future, but simply because we ran out of things to do that seemed worthwhile, and just eased away from it. What it did do it turn me into a much wider consumer of media, and my reading, TV and gaming consumption shot up through the back half of the year, so we've caught up on a lot that I suspect we'd otherwise have missed out on.

That said, I'm not sure it's been a year that anything leaps out at me as particularly outstanding. I've become completely hooked on Fringe, for instance, but I've seen nearly it's full run in the last 12 months so it's hardly a 2011 revelation except for lazy catch-ups like me. Similarly I've discovered A Song of Ice and Fire and Atomic Robo and the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast this year after somewhat criminally letting them pass me by in earlier years. Stuff new to this year? Nothing quite so striking.

On the other hand, on the gaming front there is possibly more striking and interesting games than I can successfully differentiate, especially only the indie gaming front. Bastion was great, for instance, and the number of hours I've ploughed into small titles like Dungeon Defenders dwarfs my time on the big AAA games like Uncharted 3 or Arkham City, both of which were great in their own ways. That said, if I had to pick a Game of the Year it would have to be the moody, atmospheric, thoughtful, and ever-so-slightly flawed Deus-Ex: Human Revolution, just I just found deeply interesting and compelling just to be in that world, even if my view of it was largely from hiding behind a desk.

For the sake of completeness I think I'd better mention the disappointments - largely the personal one that I didn't produce enough material for either this blog or for the commitments I made over at Geek Syndicate, a problem caused mostly by going back to college in the last quarter of the year and finding myself generally a little over-extended. I fully expect to make the same sort of error this year!

So, that was 2011. Here's looking forward to 2012...