GregHowley.com

It's that time again. Just as I did last year, it's time to list my favorite things. I'll be omitting the brown paper packages tied up with string this year.

Favorite Video Game: Dishonored Dishonored has a lot in common with Thief, and maybe that's why I like it so much. It's got a steampunk setting just like Thief, it's got game sections separated into missions just like Thief, the option to take out foes in a nonlethal way just like Thief, and strange occult magic stuff just like Thief. But the game was made this decade, and that's a major plus, even if the framerate on my machine is dismal.

I'm partway through my second playthrough in Dishonored, and I'm trying to make it through the entire game without being spotted once, and without killing anyone. I can already tell that this is the kind of game I'll play through over and over again, possibly going back to it next year, maybe again in five years.

Favorite Board Game: Robo Rally I was going to name Betrayal at the House on the Hill as my favorite, but then I realized that I first played that one in 2011. So I'm naming Robo Rally my personal board game of 2012. Even though Robo Rally's current edition was actually released in 2005, and the original way back in 1994, I first played it earlier this year at Pax East 2012.

Robo Rally has two to eight players moving their robots through a course filled with conveyor belts, spinners, lasers, and pits. The goal is to reach a number of flags in order by giving your robot instructions each turn such as "move forward 2", "turn left", and "back up 1". This is complicated by the fact that you may be turned or moved by spinners and conveyor belts along the way. It's easy to end up nowhere near where you'd planned and be zapped by another robot or fall into a pit. At present, RoboRally is one of the games I'm always willing to go back and play again.

Favorite Movie: The Avengers Are you even surprised?

Favorite Book: The NewsFlesh Trilogy My decision on favorite book of 2012 was probably my most difficult decision to make of all the favorites on this list. I could easily have chosen Robopocalypse, 11-22-63, or Pirate Cinema. I read a lot of great books this year. And as of this writing, it's possible that Jim Butcher's Cold Days will surpass all of them, but I may not finish that book in the 2012 calendar year.

Feed, Deadline, and Blackout are fantastic books about journalism in the world following the zombie apocalypse. And while the zombies are an important backdrop, the main story is about news media and political conspiracy. The pseudoscience in the books as it relates to zombies is as intricate and well-developed as Robert Jordan's magic system or the sci-fi pseudoscience surrounding Richard K. Morgan's cortical stacks.

Mira Grant does an excellent job of building up to a story climax and dropping a bombshell you never saw coming. Just as in the George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, every person who dies by any means will return as a zombie, and just as in George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, no character is ever safe. I love it.

Favorite Television Show: The Legend of Korra This one took me a bit by surprise. But when I sat back and thought about it, while Fringe is still very good, it isn't as good as it's been in seasons past. And as much as Dexter still catches me by surprise, it's lost a lot of its novelty. The Newsroom very nearly took my top spot, but when I thought back to Avatar: The Legend of Korra, my choice was clear.

I watched the first season on my phone, a Galaxy S3, which has an amazing screen. The animation just popped. And the story, while still young since the show is in its first season, was amazingly up to the standard set by Avatar: The Last Airbender. I don't watch many cartoons, and I'm not an anime or Manga fan, but this show is excellent.

Whereas Airbender had a distinctly feudal Japanese feel, Korra goes steampunk. It's now something like seventy years later, Aang is dead of old age, and the new avatar is a teenager named Korra. People now have electric automobiles, airships, telephones, flying machines, automatons, and a number of other previously unknown inventions. The writers did a brilliant job of taking the setting of the original series and evolving it.

If you're interested and haven't yet seen Avatar: The Last Airbender, I highly recommend going back and watching it before checking out Korra. Struggle past the first few episodes, which might strike you as a kids' show. Before long, the characters and the plot should grab you.

Favorite Gadget: Galaxy S3 Yes, I got a new phone this year. My Droid X was old, slow, and had what Josh had termed the black dots of death. Sprint seems to have finally pushed a patch that resolved that issue I'd had with the touch sounds reactivating any time I switched between video and still cameras, but they haven't yet released a patch that would move the position of the buttons on the phone, so I'm still accidentally adjusting the volume any time I go to hit the power key. Likewise, if I were looking for a phone in the future, I might intentionally try to find one a bit smaller.

But that said, I love the phone and I continue to do everything with it. It's now become my primary podcatcher and the only place from which I read my rss news feeds. I read the entirety of Pirate Cinema on the phone, and I can now remote into my home PC with the Android version of Teamviewer. While text entry is still easier from a full keyboard than it is from the phone, Swype makes it a near thing. And I watch more and more television from the phone. Transcoding with Handbrake is easy, and the screen on the S3 is gorgeous.

Favorite Person: Ella Perhaps it's an easy question, but my favorite new person in 2012 is my baby daughter Ella. Sure, there are the diapers and the spit-up and the waking up in the middle of the night thing, but look at her! Her hobbies including pulling her parents' hair, slapping table surfaces, and blowing raspberries in midair.