Well, by the time you read this, there will only be a few hours left of 2014 and it’s been a pretty good year, both personally and professionally.

I can’t say the same thing about the games, though. For me, 2014 was a bit of a flat year for games, mainly because it was the first year since I started writing about video games about 10 years ago that I wasn’t writing reviews for a regular publication, so review copies were far and few between (big ups to Xbox, EA and Ubisoft for sticking with me).  So, a lack of review copies, and not a lot of disposable cash to spend on  games in the early part of the year, meant I didn’t play that many games in 2014. Sad but true.

But before I get into my gaming highs, here are probably the biggest personal highlights of 2014: I started a new part-time job with Air New Zealand, which is a complete departure in terms of what I did for the past 20 years and I started up a new business called Write Angle Ltd where I can indulge my writing passions and write editorial content for websites and publications (www.writeangle.net).

It has been a year of change and growth. Ok, the self-promotion section is over …

OK, on to the games in 2014. As I said earlier, I haven’t actually played a lot of games this year so I’m limited by what I can pick are my favourites but if I had to pick three they would be: Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PS4), DragonAge Inquisition (PC) and Sunset Overdrive (Xbox). I also pre-ordered The Witcher 3’s collectors edition on PS4 (although I’m contemplating changing it to Xbox One. I’ll ponder that one).

I haven’t picked those three games because they cover the three main gaming formats (at least I didn’t consciously). I picked them because these were the games I had most fun playing this year.  I bought Shadow of Mordor myself (yes, with my own money) from NZgameshop.com after reading positive reviews. I’m glad I did: It’s a stonking game that had me caught  hook, line and sinker.

I’m still playing DragonAge Inquisition – it’s a freaken huge game – and I am enjoying it much more than I imagined I would, despite not really being into role-playing games.

And Sunset Overdrive was a highlight for the Xbox One and one of the consoles true stand out titles. There haven’t been many outstanding Xbox One exclusives so the hype was heavy on Sunset Overdrive, but I’m glad to say it delivered.

Apart from those games, I haven’t really played much else this year. Oh, I did play Far Cry 4, and that’s great fun, too. I’ve got reviews of all the games I’ve mentioned on the site. At the moment, I’m contemplating buying This War of Mine from Steam. I’ve been contemplating about buying it since yesterday. Will I, won’t I. Will I, won’t I …

Lastly, I’ve been blessed to have some dedicated readers who have followed me from my stuff.co.nz days to Game Junkie 2.0. I appreciate you all and thank you for visiting my site. I’m hoping to grow in 2015 with hardware reviews but we’ll see how that goes.

Have a great and safe start to the New Year and once I’m back from summer holidays (end of January), I’ll kick into the site and see if I can make an impact this year.

Thanks again.