After yesterday’s look back at 2012, today we’re going to look forward to 2012. What does the year have in store for us?

Games

My outlook on games in 2012 is pretty limited. SWTOR is out and I expect that to be the main thing I play, at least for awhile. I’ll continue to pop into STO and LOTRO occasionally, but no other MMO has caught my attention. I have a slight interest in Guild Wars 2, but that probably won’t launch in 2012 and it’s only a slight interest at this point.

I will undoubtedly, have a Civilization splurge at some point in the spring and fall. Depending on the needs of the baby, I might even do it sooner. Civ is a good game to play while distracted since it is turn based. I also plan to play Portal 2, which is another one that should be easy to stop and come back to when needed. That could be the downfall of SWTOR, at least outside of defined gaming periods.

I might check out the new Star Wars games coming out from Fantasy Flight. They look fun, and I might be able to convince my wife to play with me.

Geekery

I’ll be attending a few Cons this year, OwlCon and Comicpalooza, though not for fun. I’ll be spending a lot of time sitting in the dealer room, trying to sell my book. But that is cool in itself.

2012 will see the release of a few cool movies; next Batman, Avengers, Bond.  It will be Eureka’s final season, which will be sad, but I predict great things. I will also be going cable free, so all my television viewing will be done via Netflix or Zune. I don’t expect much to actually change in my viewing habits. Maybe watching less TV since we’ll be paying directly for a show, instead of indirectly via satellite.

John Scalzi has a new book called Red Shirts coming out that looks great. The name says it all. The big book release for the year will be the final Wheel of Time book. That has been a long time coming and I am actually caught up and ready for it.

There are also a few new GGP authors that should have books being released. Some of those look really cool.

Life

The single biggest anticipation of 2012 is of course, the birth of our first kid. Due in mid February, I will get to experience this whole parenting thing first hand. I am excited, though admittedly, a little scared. The babies room is not quite ready, we don’t have half of the things we need, and I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.  Am I ready? Sure don’t feel like it. But does anyone?

Politics

Ah, election years. Fun for a political junky, but also very very sad. Nothing useful will get done in government this year as it will all be about the election, which is 11 months away. We’ll finally stop hearing from all the crazies in the Republican primary, and instead, just hear from one single crazy. Because of how politics work, there is sadly, a real chance whomever it is will beat Obama. But I have faith that most Americans will recognize the BS the GOP is selling. I just have less hope that the Democrats can do any better.

Writing

2012 should see the release of my second novel and second book in the Aristeia series. I’m almost done with the first draft and have every intention of getting the first beta ready before the baby arrives. If I do that, then I should be able to have a much less rushed release for next fall.

Hopefully, it will also see sales for Revolutionary Right taking off. Friends and family have been wonderful in buying the book and telling their friends. But that can only go so far. Finding traction with people who have never heard of me is the real trick. We’ll see what happens.

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Apparently, at the end of the year, it is a common practiceto look back at the previous year and forward to the new year. Not one to buck tradition, unless I feel like it, here is my look back at 2011:

Games

Highs

• SWTOR Released: I’m still having a lot of fun playing this game. It definitely feels like Star Wars and the story is great. Game play ain’t bad either.
• Skyrim- While I didn’t get very far due to SWTOR, I did enjoy what I played. It’s a beautiful game with lots of options of what to do.
• Rise of Isengard- I enjoyed this expansion, even though I got distracted before I finished playing all of it. But since it’s F2P, I can hop back in anytime I want.
• STO’s DOFF system- while STO will make up a large chunk of the Lows, the DOFF system is well done and fun to play.

Lows

• SWTOR Released: Due to the launch of this game, I never finished the LOTRO expansion or Skyrim. There’s always next year.
• STO saw very little content added to the game. The Foundry was a nice idea, but incomplete and hasn’t been touched since it was released. There was only one Featured Episode series this year and aside from the ground combat revamp (which was a positive) there was hardly anything added until the very end of the year, and that included a lot of stupid grindy changes.
• Bought Portal 2 on sale a week before it went on sale for half the price I paid for it. Still haven’t had time to play it yet. That’s for 2012.

Geekery

Highs

• Found some good new tv this year: Burn Notice, Once Upon a Time, Psych
• Got a Kindle and have enjoyed reading from it.
• Google Music has worked great. I have all my music available from anywhere. Started working on getting all my pictures onto Picasa as well.

Lows

• No new Stargate. No new Star Trek. In fact, no new space based sci-fi TV period. That is a sad point for television.
• Was disappointed in several shows that I tried: Freaks and Geeks, Grimm, Person of Interest

Politics

Highs

• Occupy Movement kick started national awareness of the inequality of incomes and power amongst the majority of Americans.
• The 50 million Republican debates. Why are these a good thing? Because they’ve shown how idiotic all of the candidates are.
• End of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
• Withdrawal of final troops from Iraq.

Lows

• We may have gotten redistricted into Ron Paul’s district. At least this means I can vote against him, though he’s been in power so long it’s unlikely to make a difference.
• The whole debt ceiling non-issue that was turned into an issue and paralyzed the whole system.
• A completely ineffectual Congress
• SOPA
• Most people still have no idea what the Occupy movement is about. The media coverage has been terrible.

Writing

Highs

• My first novel was released! It has been one year since I quit my job and I managed to write, re-write, edit and get published one entire novel. I call that an accomplishment.
• I tried my hand at some short stories. I enjoyed the process, even though I don’t think any of them are fit for release.
• Not finding an agent or traditional publisher. You’d think this might be a down side, but I think I’ll be much happier working with GGP than I would have been with a big company. I have more control of my work and am more involved. There’s no big advance, but I’ll get more per book sale. Might not make as much, but I am not writing to become rich. That would just be a nice bonus.

Lows

• Despite every intention, I did not finish the first draft of book 2 before the end of the year.

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Based on a review from GeekDad, my wife bought me a new board game for my birthday, Battleship Galaxies. It arrived last night so we broke it out and tried out the first basic scenario.

Despite the name, the game only bears a slight connection to the old school Battleship. Instead of two ocean navies battling it out in a time before radar or satelites, you have two space navies battling it out in the depths of space. All of your pieces appear on the board so there is no guessing where the enemy is. Instead, it’s a tactics game of trying to out maneuver each other. The holdover from the the classic game plays out when you roll an attack. You roll a lettered and number die, getting something like B7, and then compare it to a graphic of the ship you are attacking. Depending on the ship, B7 might be a hit, might be a miss.

Each ship class has some unique features and the two sides have some variety from each other. In general, he ISN has ships with lower shields but tough hulls and more weapons. The Wretcheridians (yeah the names pretty stupid) have more shields and stronger weapons, but less of them and shorter ranges. Certain ships can ‘buff’ up other ships giving you real support craft. For instance, the ISN Torrent, serves as an AWAC (or Raptor for the BSG crowd), allowing you to hit the enemy from farther away, and with certain tactics cards, avoid damage. The main ship of the Wretcheridians can be really hard to destroy with its super shields.

There are several different scenarios with the game that can change up your goals. There are different terrain features that can have different effects. It’s a two dimensional board which eliminates one of the unique features of space combat, but that would be to complicated to do in a board game.

You also have the ability to self-select which ships and tactics cards you use in a game, adding variety and a level of strategy similar to a trading card game. I get the impression they will be adding expansions to the game that adding in more ships and more tactic cards along with new scenarios.

It was an enjoyable game, and despite my wife not being that big into strategy games, she also enjoyed herself. It does make me wish for a similar style computer tactical combat game. Something that is at least semi-turn based with ships of different abilities so that each fight can go a number of different ways. Star Wars Rebellion was the only one I can think of that came close. There you had some ships with different abilities and a 3D map. Though maneuvering only provided a slight tactical advantage, and the abilities of ships were limited use.

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