Burke's Joystick

[WARNING 1: Image heavy blog posting follows!] [WARNING 2: BF3 fans should be prepared to have their minds blown!]  When I had moved on from the tried and true Battlefield: Bad Company 2 to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 , something immediately struck me about the difference in maps: those in MW3 were so much more vibrant than those in BC2. MW3's maps were not only more colorful, but the locations had a "lived in" feeling. That is, the art design of the maps successfully communicated the idea that people had actually lived in these locations prior to the arrival of the bad tempered soldiers; that the terrain players merely saw as a good camping spot or a wonderful sniper's nest were much more than that: they were formerly homes and businesses of the now displaced citizenry. it just made everything seem much more believably tragic. Unfortunately, the maps is BC2 lacked similar depth to them. While they superficially resembled homes and

Illustration COD by Greg Groesch for The Washington Times  Part of my mission statement for this here blog is to get "video game-shy but politically active adults...interested in gaming (it's no longer kid stuff, you know!)."  The paratethical notation is particularly key here as I know from experience that a lot of "adults" (I'll let you define that as you see fit) avoid video games because they believe the subject matter is on par with an after school cartoon (aka: James Cameron's Avatar ).  In other words, when the over 40 crowd thinks of a video game, it is likely to be  Sonic the Hedgehog or Mario Brothers type of stuff that is more evocative of a cartoon than a movie.  And while there is a lot of that going on, particularly in the console sphere of gaming, a lot of adults do not realize that there is also more serious fare in the offering, the type of stuff that if it was made into a TV series, they would probably be more than lik

I knew there was going to be something special about the single player campaign in Black Ops 2 when the game began with this emotionally powerful video: Indeed, it seems that such intense emotional energy is the driving force behind the entire BlOps 2 story, not surprising when David S. Goyer, co-writer of The Dark Knight Rises , has penned the script. 

[Stand by for a lot of Blacks Op 2 content coming to Burke's Joystick!  I am finding it to be representative of what is best about gaming:  it is thought provoking, exciting, and wonderfully produced!] Imagine my surprise when during one of the early moments of Treyarch's superlative shooter, Black Ops 2 ,  an animated character walks up to me and I am struck by a sense of familiarity.  I think: "I know this guy...." "Hey!  That's Oliver North!" I exclaim.  And, sure enough, he is introduced as just that!  How cool is that? Why would that be cool, you ask?    

No matter how hard I try to keep this blog updated, it seems like life is determined to side-rail me.  First, I had that family emergency that dominated September and most of October, and then my area gets hit with a possible candidate for Storm of the Century!  But I must persevere, for in the words of the great Catholic G.K. Chesterton: "An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered."  Having quoted that, Hurricane Sandy was certainly more than an "incovenience" (does that make it an epic adventure for the optimist?  Am I now Bilbo Baggins?).  This storm blew through my community like an iron fist, toppling countless trees, smashing roofs, smashing cars, and, of course, destroying the electrical grid. Speaking of which:  for all of you weekend survivalists - you know, the ones who like to pretend they are starring in their own episode of The Walking Dead - being without power