Farewell to WordPress – and hello to Substack

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Hello to humans and bots alike,

This is a message to those who may still be visiting this WordPress site, for one reason or another. I have made the decision to stop publishing on this website and instead begin publishing on my new Substack page. I am doing this as I feel Substack offers more options and help to writers who wish to make a living from their work. I also find it easier and nicer to use. This page will remain online and accessible for the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, please access this link Burkeyoh Gaming on Substack and subscribe there (for free; there are also paid options). On Substack, I will be continuing to publish the written pieces on gaming, life and other trivialities which you all enjoy. By subscribing to me on Substack, you will be able to receive my pieces directly to your inbox, every Tuesday and Friday. If you decide not to make the journey over, then that’s fine too. I want to thank you for your support on my WordPress journey, which has been ongoing for 11 years from 2013-2023.

Thanks again!

– Burkey

Seasons and preferences, they aren’t always black and white

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Pokémon Black and White (2011)

There’s some things you simply cannot admit in public, particularly when it comes to your personal preferences. People tell you to open up and be opinionated, but they don’t mean that, really. When I start going on about bra sizes, for example, nobody wants to know.

I don’t know what it could be, but my voting habits tend to get a room fuming as well, something about me being a bootlicker or somesuch. But the one that really gets me the stink-eye is when I say that, actually, winter might just be my favourite season.

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Playing Turok 2 without cheats is what a Cerebral Bore must feel like

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Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (1998)

As I write, there are millions of us jaded old gamers lamenting, “where have all the cheat codes gone?” Where indeed? Like anything else, sport for instance, you won’t just get there through raw talent anymore; now you’ll need a fair bit of money behind you to progress.

And so it is with gaming – why let you unlock cool things for free, like the infinite ammo bandanna in Metal Gear Solid, when they could sell it to you instead, plus a million other gamers, for €1.99 each? I’m sorry to tell you that the classic cheat code is long dead.

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Building the Best Pokémon Team (Part 28)

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Building the Best Pokémon Team (Part 28)

There’s a certain time in every Pokémon game, it might come after about the fifth badge, when your team is fully established and indeed, most of them are fully evolved. It’s around this point of the game that you might begin to encounter the below creatures and ask yourself the classic question of Blackjack: do you stick with the previously reliables, or twist with some of the new shakers below? Well, that’s what I’m here to help you with, innit? Just don’t blame me if you’re left with a load of undeveloped babby Pokémon before the sixth Gym Leader battle.

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Image rights infringement? Shurely shome mishtake

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Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990)

So, have you got any lookalikes? If you do, I hope they’re flattering ones; after all, there’s nothing than someone piping up, “you look like Woody Allen!” as if a resemblance to any celebrity at all is some kind of compliment. Talk about a day-ruiner, especially if you’ve been putting in serious effort at the gym.

It’s slim pickings for me in the lookalikes stakes, I’m afraid, in fact I wouldn’t be too upset about being linked to Slim Pickens at this stage. Probably the worst one I’ve gotten is deadpan “funnyman” Jack Dee, but you can hold on to your giggles because you’re talking about a Celebrity Big Brother winner there.

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It goes down sweet and smooth, but it’ll cost you a few Golds

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Faxanadu (1990)

I’ve done some pretty crazy things and mad things to where I get close to women you know without getting arrested, that is, and chiefly among them is temporarily taken up smoking. Now, I came from a heavy smoking household. I used to be under the impression that the terms are super nintendo yellow. All the smoke it was that bad, but for my parents that is who have both since given up in fairness to them. I hope it isn’t too little too late.

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Building the Best Pokémon Team (Part 27)

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Building the Best Pokémon Team (Part 27)

Ice creams and gears, we’re at the heart of Generation V now. The last great Pokémon Generation, I called it. But listen, these things are always cyclical. I’m only denouncing later Generations now, the ones that younger players love today, in the same way that people probably dumped all over Generation II when it was the most gobsmacking thing I’d ever experienced, at the time. And if you go still further back, older folks would have looked at me memorising all of the original 151 Pokémon, their types, their moves, their cries, and said “put that down, you fool. Go out and get yourself a girlfriend.”

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“Begun, the waifu wars have”

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Fire Emblem Fates (Birthright) (2016)

I’m as lazy, uninspired and bone-idle as the next man, but even I suffer from that strange phenomenon of the 2AM jolt of motivation, that moment where you’re lying in bed, nowhere near deep sleep, and you suddenly resolve to learn 2 languages, design a video game, write a book ad lose fifty pounds, and you’re even crazier if you think you’ll do it in that order. This is all forgotten about the following morning of course, when you awake startled, frazzled and you must shamble into school or work. But eventually, through early morning perseverance and more than a little keeping up with the Joneses, there is a change.

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If only panda bears could do it on command

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Star Fox Command (2007)

When I was over in Munich, which by a very happy coincidence and completely unbeknownst to us was at the same time as the Oktoberfest, we eventually peeled ourselves away from the dancing tables and found ourselves in a busy park. Not busy with people, but rather there was a WWF display.

It wasn’t HHH versus Stone Cold under the trees, more’s the pity. No, this was the World Wide Fund for Nature, and they were hosting a display of hundreds of little plastic panda bears, which represented the amount of pandas left on earth.

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I put my blood, sweat and eyesight into these games for you, you know

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Game Boy Advance (2001)

I came to the depressing realisation a number of years ago that I’m a slave to screens. I would spend, and continue to spend, pretty much every waking hour looking at a screen of some description. I go from my work PC to the TV to the games console, with healthy amounts of phone thrown in. And I came to this conclusion even before smartphones were “ubiquitous”, so you can only imagine what it’s like for me now.

Continue reading “I put my blood, sweat and eyesight into these games for you, you know” →