2012 - My year of gaming

The majority of my gaming over this year has shifted from board games to video games.  2011 was the first year I decided to record the plays of video games via the VideoGameGeek website.  The method I choose to record my plays was that if I played a specific video game on a particular day I would record only a single play, regardless if I played the game for 5 minutes or 5 hours.  This allows me to easily track how much I use a game on a daily basis over the full year.  

Here is a combined list of video and board games I played in 2012.

ArmA II: Operation Arrowhead	58
Minecraft	42
The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar	40
Battlefield 3	20
Pass the Pigs	19
Just Cause 2	11
Max Payne 3	9
Grand Theft Auto IV	8
Call of Duty: Black Ops II	5
Call of Duty: Black Ops	4
Pick Picknic	4
Alien Swarm	3
Diablo II	3
Die Mauer	3
PitchCar Mini	3
Sherlock	3
The aMAZEing Labyrinth	2
Battlefield: Bad Company 2	2
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3	2
Gran Turismo 5	2
Haunted Castle	2
Portal 2	2
Risk Express	2
Der schwarze Pirat	2
The Settlers of Catan	2
Snorta!	2
UNO Stacko	2
ArmA II	1
Batman: Arkham Asylum	1
Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers	1
Cartagena	1
Château Roquefort	1
Dungeons & Dragons Online	1
Formula Motor Racing	1
Gotham City Impostors	1
Half-Life 2	1
Heroscape Expansion Set: Defenders of Kinsland	1
Heroscape Expansion Set: Malliddon's Prophecy	1
Heroscape Expansion Set: Road to the Forgotten Forest	1
Heroscape Expansion Set: Thora's Vengeance	1
Heroscape Expansion Set: Ticalla Jungle	1
Heroscape Expansion Set: Utgar's Rage	1
Heroscape Master Set: Rise of the Valkyrie	1
Heroscape Master Set: Swarm of the Marro	1
Just Dance 2	1
Lord of the Rings	1
Microsoft Flight	1
No Thanks!	1
Samba De Amigo	1
Scrabble	1
Through the Desert	1
Tutankhamen	1
Wii Sports Resort	1

ArmA II: Operation Arrowhead was certainly my most played PC video game over the course of 2012.  The main reason for this was to play the DayZ mod for this game.  DayZ is a zombie survival game which I find so much fun to play. Minecraft was another game I spent a lot of time playing in 2012 on PC.  This game was a lot of fun playing multiplayer with my daughters Maddie and Georgia. Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar or LOTRO is a great PC game that Maddie and I play together online.  Happy New Year and good gaming to all for 2013!

The Hobbit - A Long Awaited Viewing

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was released on 14 December 2012 but unfortunately here in Australia we had to wait a further 12 days until it opened on Boxing Day 26 December 2012.

Gandalf and a hobbit girl

My wife had pre-booked tickets for me and Maddie (our family's two LOTR fans) to see the first session on Boxing Day at our local cinema.  The version of The Hobbit we saw was the 3D and 48 frames per second (FPS) version.

It was wonderful to return to Peter Jackson's version of Middle-Earth after almost a decade.  We both very much enjoyed the film and can't wait for the next one in the trilogy to be released in a years time.

There were some reports in the media of people not liking the higher frame rate, however I found no problem with the 48 FPS frame rate. 

Roll on December 2013 for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.