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...

Interesting article today over at PC Gamer .  It seems that a collaboration between Digital Media at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Expressive Intelligence Studio at UC Santa Cruz, along with a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, has produced the "Game-O-Matic" .  What is it, you ask?  Well, according to its official description, it is:     ...a tool for creating short, simple games. Instead of designing how characters and objects behave and then spending hours coding it, Game-O-Matic lets you think about what you want a game to be about. All you have to do is create a diagram of relationships and choose which of the games it makes for you that you like best! As a practical matter, the program operates by taking user submitted nouns and verbs, and applying them to a selection of premade gameplay templates to create a simple game.  The result?  Crap.

  I missed so much over the past month.  Sorry about that.  However, I did come across two things that have been stuck in my craw and I just need to address.  First, this guy: Yeah...Glenn Beck.  I have a love/hate relationship with this guy.  On the good side, Beck did yeoman work on his (alas, appropriately) short-lived show by bringing the wisdom of the Founding Fathers to life like no one has on television in a long, long time.  On the bad side, Beck fell victim to Bill O'Reilly-itis (the demagogue O'Reilly being his mentor at FOX News, of course) and quickly developed such a huge ego that he brashly took credit for everything good that occurred in this nation's political life since the start of his television show, including the rise of the Tea Party, the rejection of Obama, and the re-discovery of America's brilliant founding principles. Nonetheless, I still feel compelled to defend Beck for no other reason that the Left hates him...

So, yesterday I posted an entry on Stardock's release of The Political Machine 2012.  Not surprisingly, some reviews have begun appearing on this niche title over the last few days.  Leading the review pack, as always, are the fellas over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun .   Now, if you are not familiar with them, RPS is a wonderfully witty site that covers computer gaming and news with a particular focus on PC gaming.  However, RPS, being largely staffed by our English cousins across the big pond, does display a typically European left-wing bias whenever the subject touches on politics, as seen in their involvement with the politically juvenile propaganda game, Curfew .  Not surprisingly, their review of The Political Machine 2012 displays a similar bias as well, albeit, knowing how these guys work, I suspect more than a little of it was designed to create a dust-up for their amusement.  Anyway, just thought I would post some excerpts here.