Burke's Joystick

Did you hear?!?  American troops have engaged Russian forces in combat in Syria!  It's true!  Here's the footage: Darn intro text got cut off!  I am still not good at video editing! Okay, okay, that wasn't actual combat footage, but footage from one of my recent sessions in DICE's Battlefield 3, a first person shooter that revolves around American and Russian troops fighting it out in the Middle East.   So that wasn't real...but I find it a strangely compelling vision of just what a larger international conflict might look like in Syria.

If you wear glasses, you are well aware that there is no worse feeling in the world than when your glasses break.  Unfortunately that is what happened to me two weeks ago.  They just snapped in half for no apparent reason.   The eyeglass shop I go to was kind enough to give me a lender set while mine were in the repair shop, but as anyone who wears glasses also knows, even a near identical set of frames adds enough variation to your prescription that it still takes a bit of time before your eyes adjust.  Hence the reason why I haven't been writing much. But now I am good to go.  Phew! Fortunately, it doesn't appear that I have missed much in terms of gaming news, especially political gaming news.  I guess this is a sign that gaming is definitely cooling off for longer and longer periods of time in the wake of the pre-Christmas rush.  Makes you wonder about the long term health of the hobby.... One story that did recently catch my eye is th...

[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 ...

"This week Vice President Joe Biden spoke at a senior center in Iowa. Which explains why the seniors were like, 'Is this Hell?'" –Jimmy Fallon   Poor Joe Biden.  Personally, I think our VP is a rather nice fella.  Unfortunately, he just isn't the sharpest tool in the shed.  We knew this long before he was ever VP - I mean, he was caught plagiarizing time and again.  Then there are all those wonderful gaffes caught on film: And liberals like to make fun of Palin.  Wow.   Well, ol' Joe did it again with this incredibly racist statement a few days ago: Remember when Bill Clinton complained that Team Obama "played the race card" on him?   Well, it looks like they were planning on going back to that well in their desperation to talk about anything but Obama's abysmal record.  Unfortunately for them, this time they went too far and needed to put Joe back in the attic .  Now, what has this got to do...