Burke's Joystick

I think most gamers would agree that Gabe Newell's Steam has been a boon to PC gaming.  In just a few short years, this digital distribution service has managed to become the Walmart of PC gaming - an incredible bazaar of often discounted digital entertainment options for the gaming enthusiast.  But it is also more than just an elaborate store as Steam has also become a beloved home for gamers, a mega-community where gamers can not only chew the fat, but also a place where aspiring game designers can get their prototypes "green-lit" by the community, potentially providing an invaluable boost to a fledgling title that might otherwise languish in obscurity.  With this in mind is it any wonder that Mr. Newell has become something of a rock star in our gaming subculture? Nonetheless, despite all the good will Steam has garnered over the years, I still come across a vocal minority that simply distrusts any service that requires the gamer to be at the mercy of a digita...

  So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell? - Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd Unemployment at a staggering 12.6%. A lawless American government. American domestic spying approaching the same level as the old USSR. Foreign enemies with nukes on the move. And more.  Lots more. Can you see why I might be in such a pessimistic mood? My mood, of course, feeds my gaming. And being in such a cynical state of mind, I just haven't had the disposition to pick up Titanfall , the game whose beta so made me gush just a few weeks ago. The idea of playing a game that takes place in a clean, high tech type of future - if war torn - just isn't doing it for me.  I desire something more reflective of my dispirited temper. So, what does one play when he is downright dour?  Well, I suppose that depends on the player.  For me, though...

Of course, there is another mecha game fast approaching on its stompy legs:  the much ballyhooed Titanfall from Respawn Entertainment.  This is already proving something of a lodestone in gaming as it pits the aggrieved team that formerly constituted Infinity Ward - the geniuses who reinvented the first person shooter with their world famous Call of Duty franchise - against their old bosses at Activision who fired them out of alleged avarice.  So we definitely have a lot of emotional baggage in play with this title.  But Titanfall is also drawing a lot of attention for another reason:  it promises to repeat the success of CoD by reinventing a very stale shooter genre yet again.  Will the devs catch lightning in a bottle for a second time? Did I mention that I have about twelve hours in the beta so far?  Yeah.  Twelve hours in the Titanfall beta.  Sort of gives away the answer, doesn't it?

Things are coming up mecha! It's funny: until Hawken went into open beta roughly a year ago, I never was interested in the sci-fi concept of 'mecha'.  It just always seemed really silly to me for an armored vehicle to drop the inherent stability of treads for balance-heavy legs!  In retrospect, maybe it never was a silly as I once thought it was as legged machines seem to be all the rage lately in the world of robotics research.  Go figure. Be that as it may, once the mecha bug bit me, it bit deep.  Those main battle tanks that had somehow managed to grow a pair of legs can be quite addictive!  I have found that there is a thoroughly unique feeling of power that comes with the ability to stride across a battlefield rather than ride across it like some peasant on a donkey. What is more, I quickly learned to appreciate the distinctiveness of the combat that surrounds bipedal tanks.  Because something with legs is always going to be more elegant in ...

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...

“How could you possibly allow the election of a citizen of a socialist country as pope?!?" - Yuri Andropov, then head of the KGB  [1] In the tumultuous events of World War III, perhaps the most tumultuous was the so-called "Polish Summer" of 1982.  While short-lived, largely the result of the brutal Soviet reprisals upon Poland, the Polish uprising of that hot August caused a great deal of chaos within Pact ranks while it existed.  It is now known that the cause for this revolt, also known as the 'Stanislaw Uprising", was the attempted KGB assassination of Pope John Paul II.  While initially blamed upon a Turkish "lone wolf", evidence quickly mounted to the contrary conclusion:  that this attempt on the pontiff's life was a tightly-controlled "wet op" locally orchestrated from within the Bulgarian embassy in Italy, specifically by Bulgarian military attaché Zilo Vassilev , but most definitely managed by the KGB from afar.  It i...

The man of system . . . is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. . . .  —Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759 If I was to identify one thing wrong with the current political  landscape (and economic, for that matter), it would be the mistaken belief that there is no right or wrong in the world of politics.  That is, many people seem to be of the bizarre opinion that, in the words of  Jeremy Bentham , "pushpin is as good as poetry".  This is, of course, compl...