Taking after my co-blogger Pike, I thought I would take a look back on my year in gaming!

January
I started the year in the middle of a huge Civilization IV kick, and it was by far the most played game of that month I am sure. I sampled a multitude of mods for it, such as Caveman 2 Cosmos and Fall From Heaven 2.

February
Feb was still plenty of Civ IV, but there was a great deal of Dwarf Fortress mixed in there as well. At the end of the month I also fired up my good old WoW account, a little before Pike did likewise.

March
There was plenty of WoW this month, at least for a couple of weeks. Once that was done I believe I started a huge SimCity 4 kick that lasted for a couple of months.

April
In April the new fan version of Hearts of Iron 2, known as Darkest Hour was released. I pretty much immediately fell even more in love with HoI thanks to this and played little else.

June and July
I didn’t spend terribly much time on any particular game during the height of summer, I was more concerned with not melting! A wide variety of things were dabbled with here. I think there was some Minecraft.

August
In August I sat down to replay an old favorite on the PS1, Breath of Fire III. It really is a wonderful, charming game with all kinds of hidden depths, and it was time well spent.

September
September was when I played the majority of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which surprised me as much as anybody else by not only being good, but by being a worth successor to the original DX!

October
In October I started on a long-lasting space 4X kick, which includes Galactic Civilizations 2, Master of Orion 2, Space Empires IV, and Star Ruler.

November
November was when both Skyrim and Saints Row: The Third landed, and I spent a huge amount of time with both!

December
I’ve spent most of this month with the Kaiserriech mod for Darkest Hour, and I’ve just now started up Dwarf Fortress again.

And so we come to the close of 2011. It’s been an exciting year filled with things like, well, this blog starting up, for one. I’ve also played quite a lot of games, of course. Here’s a look back at some of the things that have struck my fancy this year:

JANUARY:
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was what I was playing at the beginning of the year. I’d never actually played a Phoenix Wright game before and I borrowed this one from my sisters, who are big fans. I regret to say that I didn’t finish the game because I got sidetracked by other things, but the first three-quarters or so were an enjoyable, if somewhat benign, romp. The whole gameplay premise was new and interesting and the fun characters kept you interested during parts that may have otherwise lagged. I did have to give the game back to my sisters after a while but I hope to finish it some day!

FEBRUARY:
February is when I started playing Civilization IV, which I had somehow never played before. Shameful, I know. Regardless, life would never be the same.

MARCH:
March was the month that Mister Adequate and I started this blog! I was also still playing a lot of Civ IV. I think this was also the month where Mister Adequate and I, both old World of Warcraft vets who had since quit, resubbed for a month to give it another whirl. There were a couple weeks of fun as we ran around as Tauren paladins, but those couple of weeks only lasted, well, a couple of weeks and then it was back to Civ.

APRIL:
I played a lot of games on-and-off throughout April, including Hearts of Iron 2 and X-Com: UFO Defense. There was, I think, still a lot of Civ going on.

MAY:
May was when I finally got around to playing SimCity 4. Considering that I grew up with SimCity, it’s pretty terrible that I didn’t actually get around to the fourth installment until now, but there you go.

JUNE:
Ah, June. The month that I finally sat down for a proper playthrough of Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri and was immediately smitten. I don’t know if a game had ever captivated me quite the same way that SMAC did that month, and I feel safe telling you six months later that there will always be a special place for this game in my heart.

JULY:
This was the month that I finally let myself be consumed first by Minecraft and then by Terraria. I’d resisted for so long and finally could resist no longer, and I spent most of this month derping around with a mining pick. I haven’t played either game in a long while, but I won’t lie: they were nice to spend long, lazy summer nights with.

AUGUST:
In August I headed back to Civ IV, because I just can’t quit it. Many, many multiplayer shenanigans happened involving Mister Adequate and I, partially because we both love Civ and partially because we can’t seem to get any other games to work with multiplayer.

SEPTEMBER:
September was a busy month that involved me moving back to my home state and getting a new job. Still, there was enough time for a lot of old favorites, as well as enough time for Mister Adequate and I to discover that Sid Meier’s SimGolf is a thing.

OCTOBER:
In October I played all of Final Fantasy. The one with no numbers after it. It was definitely neat to look back at an older JRPG like that and see just how much the genre has changed (or stayed the same.) Mister Adequate and I also gave WoW another spin, which lasted all of about two weeks. Ah well!

NOVEMBER:
This was the month that I jumped right into Final Fantasy 2 and also fell in with a lot of other great games, such as Space Empires IV and The Binding of Isaac. Somehow, though, between all of this, I still managed to win NaNoWriMo. Oh, I published a book, too. Guess that’s worth a mention!

DECEMBER:
December has been a month of two things: Paradox games (Darkest Hour and Europa Universalis 3, specifically), and Skyrim. The Paradox games come as no shock to anyone, I’m sure, especially because I’ve played them before, but Skyrim really took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite as engrossing as it is. Great way to round out the year, though!

How has your year been in games?