2012 Gift Guide: My Teenager's Favorite Games

After much poking and prodding, I finally go my 14-year-old gamer son, Joseph, to cough up his favorite games and picks for your kids's Christmas list this year. In no particular order, here are his picks.

Starcraft 2 (Blizzard Entertainment)

"I like it because it is all about strategy -- micromanagement and macromanagement. You having to be thinking about the big and the small all the time. Startcraft 2 is all about the community. It is one of the biggest e-sport games today. I like to watch it -- videos of past matches -- as much as I like to play it."

Diablo 3 (Blizzard Entertainment)

"Diablo was basically the creator of the 'hack and slash' genre. It is great fun to hop into a lobby with 3 of your friends and for an hour you are basically a family -- everyone communicates and works as a team."

Planetside 2

"A free-to-play, MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) shooter with a tug-of-war aspect to it. You are taking and losing factories and facilities all over the map and it can hold up to 2000 people at a time on a map. It is another game where teamwork is essential."

League of Legends

"A free-to-play - RTS (Real Time Strategy) game where, again, teamwork is essential. You are constantly waiting for other team to mess up so you can take advantage of that. It is a crazy game!"

Minecraft

"One of the world's greatest sandbox games and as been under development for the past 2 years where you can do anything your heart desires. Single player is fun but it is the multiplayer is where it shines. The great thing about Minecraft is it is so flexible that people can create games within the game that take it to an entirely different level."

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

"Possibly the #1 selling game of 2012 and the newest installment of the Call of Duty series. It sends you into near-future warfare and continues the story of Black Ops 1 directly in the campaign. Most of the most energetic and face-paced FPS games and the most balanced Call of Duty since Call of Duty 2. It is also trying to be introduced in the eSports community like Starcraft 2."

More 2012 Gift Guide Items:

Microsoft release Outlook.com email services to replace Hotmail

Today Microsoft released its new email service Outlook.com to replace its Hotmail brand. This new streamlined Metro interface design looks good and functions well so far. You can use your existing Microsoft account to log in and then choose an email alias (i.e. douglaswelch@outlook.com) for your new email address. Here are several articles that discuss Outlook.com... Goodbye, Hotmail; Hello, Outlook.com [REVIEW] Outlook Is a Completely New, Feature-Filled Webmail Service from Microsoft Go Get Your @Outlook Email Address Quick Before Someone Else Does I will post links to more articles and reviews as they appear.

Shared calendars are one part of an organized family

by Douglas E. Welch , techiq@welchwrite.com 206-338-5832 Reader/Listener Line As a parent with a school-age child, I often hear other parents bemoaning their disorganized existence. Along with the busy schedules of two working parents you might have art classes, karate classes, Little League, soccer and more. Add in more than one kid and organizing your life can quickly become a nightmare. This is exactly why one of my most important organizing devices is a shared calendar that reflects all the activities and events for everyone in the household...and I do mean everything. If someone -- is required to be somewhere -- at sometime, it goes into the calendar. If we are given a calendar that reflects all the events for a particular activity (say, Little League), all these events immediately go into the calendar, along with notations on whether we are providing the team snack, working in the snack bar, etc. Even events that occur anytime during the day, like family birthdays, and other rem...

Google Docs adds templates

I have started to move away from using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc) in favor of online tools like Google Docs . Even as a computer consultant, I find that I use probably less than 10% of the features in any of these projects. One feature I really like in Google Docs is the easy, online file sharing that also allows you to edit simultaneously with someone else. Today, Google Docs added some templates including business cards, brochures and more. At the moment, it looks like they are rolling out this feature over time, so you might not yet see the templates on your account. When available, you will find the templates under the New... menu item. From Open Loops ... Today, Google quietly rolled out a new feature for their Google Docs Applications: Templates! It's so new that it isn't even listed on the new features page at this time. When one opens their Google Docs account and chooses to start a new document, a new "From Template..." command is pre...

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