GregHowley.com

As has been my tradition this past few years, I'm ready to sum up my year by listing my favorite things of 2013. It was a bit of a slow year on certain counts, so I'll list my list of things in order from least to most competitive.

Favorite TV Show: I have no idea. Since Fringe ended, there really hasn't been a TV show that I've been into. Homeland is decent, I guess. I'm still enjoying The Legend of Korra, The Big Bang Theory, and The Walking Dead. Game of Thrones was good too, even if just for The Red Wedding. But it's hard to qualify any of them as "best". I need some quality TV.

Favorite Gadget: Chromecast. There's really no competition here, as I didn't do a lot of gadget-buying in 2013. I set up a XBMC HTPC, which I suppose is new to me, but it's old hardware. The Chromecast is nice in that it only cost $35, and it will play Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, and HBOGo. The entire interface for pushing to the Chromecast is done from mobile devices: smartphones and tablets. It's pretty slick. And there's now a rumor that you'll be able to set up a Plex server and stream local files to the Chromecast, which would be amazing.

Favorite Board Game: Descent: Journeys in the Dark. It's not a new game, but it's new to me. As I detailed in my last board game post, Descent is D&D lite, and it's a great way to run a campaign with continuity with little to no homework. There's no real roleplaying of course - at least no more than you might do while playing Diablo on an XBox - but it's a great little game, and I'm very much enjoying it.

Favorite Movie: Pacific Rim. While I enjoyed Riddick quite a lot, and Gravity was the only movie in which I've actually enjoyed the 3D, my movie of the year is Pacific Rim. Half Voltron and half Godzilla, Pacific Rim gave us all the giant robot versus giant monster combat we could want. The loopholes and flaws are easy to pick out, but it's a heck of a lot more fun to just enjoy the film. You know there'll be a sequel, and I can only hope that when that happens, we see more of the other Jaegers and other teams than we did in Pacific Rim.

Favorite Book A Memory of Light. Finally we're up to a point where I had to do some actual thinking before arriving at an answer. I read some good books in 2013. The Name of the Wind was great, I enjoyed Homeland, and Wool could easily have taken the top spot. But it's hard to top the well-written climax of an epic fantasy series that's been in progress for over twenty years. Robert Jordan's first half dozen novels in the series were some of the best fantasy fiction I've ever read. But after that, books seven, eight, and ten were difficult to get through. But when Brandon Sanderson took over, the series was given new life. The conclusion in A Memory of Light was everything I wanted out of the story, and it was a fitting ending for The Wheel of Time.

Favorite Video Game: The Walking Dead. This one was actually a difficult decision. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons nearly ended up in my first place. And Typing of the Dead: Overkill was such a wonderful mess that it's hard not to give it the honorable mention. But my favorite game of the year is The Walking Dead. I've always been a sucker for story in games. That's probably why I love Heavy Rain and Beyond Good and Evil so much. And The Walking Dead video game is nothing but story. It's also got the mature themes that I loved so much in Heavy Rain and in Dragon Age: Origins. Definitely my Game of the Year.