| Top 10 video games of 2011 and The 10 biggest tech stories of 2011 |
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(CNN) -- Enough already about "Angry Birds" -- there were plenty of great console video games in 2011.Many longtime franchises put bows on storylines that had been going on for years. It was also the year of the shooter (and the number 3) as "Battlefield 3," "Gears of War 3" and "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" brought players into combat zones with new and creative gameplay.Those titles got lots of hype and sold millions of units, but none made my list of the top games of the year.As with any top 10 list, many good games did not make the cut. I tried to include games that I never really wanted to put down until the very last scene. Of course, your list will vary.Here's my list, counted down in order, of my 10 favorite games of 2011 (feel free to disagree in the comments):A fitting finale for Nathan Drake and his adventures, "Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception" wraps up the historical adventure franchise with possibly his greatest treasure yet. [Read the full article] (Mashable) -- Hacker group Anonymous began its promised week of Christmas hacks, assaulting a long list of targets. The first Anonymous hack resulted in stolen emails and credit card data from Stratfor, an Austin-based think tank that concentrates on security issues.One alleged conspirator said the goal was to use that credit card data to steal a million dollars, and give the money away as Christmas donations, the AP reports. Online images, posted to Twitter, show receipts from the donations.Twitter account @YourAnonNews, which is supposedly linked to the group, tweeted Sunday that the reason it was able to steal the credit card data was because it had not been encrypted by Stratfor -- an embarrassing mistake for a company specializing in security.Among the private clients on Stratfor's tightly-guarded list -- whose information Anonymous says it accessed -- are the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force and the Miami Police Department. [Read the full article] Editor's note: LZ Granderson, who writes a weekly column for CNN.com, was named journalist of the year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and a 2011 Online Journalism Award finalist for commentary. He is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com and the 2009 winner of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for online journalism. Follow him on Twitter: @locs_n_laughsAfter "can you hear me now?" is there a more frustrating phrase we have to yell into our cells over and over again than that?It's so bad that I find myself adding words like "please" and sometimes "dammit" even though I know it's only going to confuse the automated service more but I can't help it because the process is slowly driving me insane.It's either that or I start pushing the pound key as soon as I hear a robotic voice on the other end, which of course doesn't work either because companies have figured out that we have figured out the shortcut. [Read the full article] 
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