Burke's Joystick

Wow!  Been a while since I last posted.  That's what happens in the world of gaming - you run hot, you run cold.  After my hot spell with Eugen's Wargame: AirLand Battle , the chill definitely set in with me.  Not entirely though, as I have been having a lot of fun play Paradox's two masterpieces: Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV .  EU IV was a recent gift, and I have to say I have enjoyed my first foray into the world of renaissance politics since installing the game.  Not as much as CK2, mind you, but that is largely due to the fact that I just prefer the medieval era to that of later periods, albeit, I have been having a lot of fun colonizing the New World!  Someday I need to get around to doing an EU IV AAR. (I also need to find time to tell you about my current crop of nobles in CK2: of Duke Lucido and his tendencies to get the women in his life killed , or his son, Duke Vimara, whom methodically eliminated the participants of a...

One of the things I have tried to show via this blog is how modern video games, like a good book or a good movie, can shed light on geopolitical events.  This is not that startling: military and political scientists have been using "games theory" for a very long time to simulate the world of realpolitik.   Games are very good at this because they can smartly abstract the salient military and political principles that are operative in our world, thereby making them easier to digest.  So, for example, in my last post I showed how DICE's first-person shooter Battlefield 3 captures an essentially correct vision of high-intensity warfare in the Persian Gulf, making it a game I believe every politician should play at least once before glibly voting for another Gulf war (especially in light of the fact that a mere 21.8% of congress have actual military experience).  In the specifics, it might not come close to real combat, but it does capture the fundamental...

[The following is from a blog entry I did for my Chess.com blog.  Seeing how it is about a year old, I am surprised that my feelings on the current (dismal) state of CRPGs has not changed (I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I think Crusader Kings II is the only true CRPG out there at the moment!)  I am posting it here because the criticisms contained in this post are as valid as ever.] I realized something interesting recently: even though I have played my fair share of computer role playing games, I rarely blog about them. Oh sure, occasionally I will have a post about how RPG X has really impressed me with some facet of its gameplay, but rarely do I find myself drawn into an ongoing narrative as I have been wont to do with other genres. This is strange when you stop and think about it. I mean, RPGs by definition are designed to weave an engaging story that should be readily tailored into not just a single blog posting, but multiple posts. Yet, despite...

It's all going down the drain. That's the best way I can describe what is happening to my beloved hobby of gaming.  Right down the drain. I guess it is is apropos seeing that the same thing is happening to this great nation of ours.   Republican, Democrat, console dev, or PC dev...it doesn't matter.  It seems everyone is content to watch the train wreck happen rather than do something about it. Hence, the reason why I haven't written in a long while.  It's not that I didn't want to write, it is just that there has been absolutely nothing to write about.  Even my leftist opponents in the gaming press have run out of things to talk about - don't blame 'em, after all how can to inject militant feminism into a platformer??? Gaming, it would seem, is dying. Now, why would I say that?

I iz bak! Amazing how everything can change in a matter of minutes. For me, the world turned upside down about three week ago when my father had a heart attack. I never saw it coming as my father had no history of heart problems. Nonetheless, there I stood in the local emergency room early one Sunday morning wondering how we wound up in such dire straits. Interestingly, neither the ambulance techs, nor the emergency room doctors, could definitely conclude that my father was having a heart attack as the EKG was inconclusive, and my fathers symptoms were not the classic symptoms of a heart attack (pain down the arms and/or jaw, trouble breathing, etc.). In fact, for some three hours, the docs were thinking gallbladder attack or a bloodclot in the lung (his only symptoms were a severe pain off near his shoulder, and falling blood oxygen levels). However, the blood test showed that at some point he did have a heart attack.

My interest in how gaming and politics often mix isn't a new one.  For example, take this editorial I wrote in 2008 (then, like now, we were on the cusp of a big election) explaining how a solid strategy game like Medieval II: Total War could actually be an edifying experience when it comes to explaining the political art of nation-state politics.  While M2TW might no longer be the top dog in the strategy genre ( Crusader Kings 2 would be my new champion), the lessons that M2TW taught me are as valid now as they were in 2008...or 1008 A.D. for that matter.   Someday I really need to revisit this topic using CK2....