Burke's Joystick

Hey all, Not much to report today.  I've been busy catching up on some indoor chores now that the epic heatwave of '10 has broken for a few days (could AlGore be right?!?).  Also, I needed to knock out a few pages on a new article I'm working on for GameSquad.com (it's about eight games that all PC gamers should keep an eye on - there's some potentially good stuff coming down the pike at long last!). Anyhoo...no gaming news, but here's an interesting vid from a guy who calls himself 'LiverLip Louie'.  I don't know why his lip is made of liver, or why he looks like rooster made out of shaving cream, but his sentiments are right on.  Enjoy!

So there I was, sitting in a limey burger joint, eating ‘micro-burgers’ and trying to figure out how to kill some time.  Oh sure, I played the government approved game where I got to shoot peace protesters and non-conformists to my heart’s content (seriously, that was in the game!), but it just wasn’t doing it for me anymore.  I needed a proper thrill for a Brit teenager.  Perhaps some fish and chips would fit the bill? As I “queued up” in front of the ‘B’ citizen counters, one of the hired help offered to help me get my hands on a copy of Grand Theft Auto 13, a most definitely not government approved video game.  It was at that point that I…fell asleep.   Well, that’s not entirely true.  I did revisit the game later that night with the intent of seeing just where this browser-based game from the UK’s Channel 4 was taking me, but after sitting through what seemed an eternity’s worth of propaganda (I mean the propaganda of the game , not the propaganda in the game ), I reached the mi

The big day is here for millions of fans:  Blizzard has released Starcraft II! Yawn. Okay, okay…to be fair, there is nothing wrong with Starcraft.  I just don’t care for it.  I played the original and found it to be a fine RTS (with great cut scenes!), but it never really hooked me in the way it did others, especially those crazy South Koreans .  I think part of the reason is that I am a fanatical Warhammer 40K fan and Starcraft comes across as a thinly veiled copycat of that awesome game universe (if I recall correctly, one of the original devs even admitted that they did base Starcraft on 40K after learning they couldn’t afford the GW license…how things have changed over the decades).  It does have its own merits, but I just can’t get over the glaring similarities (e.g., Zergs = Tyrannids;  Protoss =  Eldar;  Terrans = Space Marines).   This does not mean, however, that I won’t be giving it a try at some point.  I’m a sucker for big budget (estimated dev cost: a record-breaki

Hi all! Welcome to my new blog, Burke's Joystick! Now, you are probably asking what this blog is going to be all about.  Well, that's a good question.  As a writer, I can tell you that these things take on a life of their own.  My plans for this blog is to merge my two passions in life: conservative politics and gaming. It's a strange mix, I know. But not as strange as you might think.  Gaming is following in the footsteps of cinema in many, many ways.  Like cinema, gaming began as an obscure hobby for technophiles and has since evolved into the multi-billion dollar industry it is today.  Also like cinema, the art of game design has evolved from incredibly simplistic beginnings (Pong, anyone?), to massively complex programs that are herculean efforts of human genius (many candidates here; let's go with EvE Online ).  As far as I can tell, there is only one area where gaming has not - yet - followed cinema in a big way:  and that is the use of the medium for po