Month: April 2022

Unbreakable, unshakeable, unmistakable, unputdownable

~ Burkey Gaming ~ Leave a comment

Game Boy / Game Boy Color (1990 / 1998)

I think we can all be pretty much unanimously agreed on what are the three hardest substances known to man. Forget about any of your piddly diamond or adamantium, or even unobtanium if you wanted to get really ridiculous – I’m talking moreso about the three bits of hardware that’ll never let you down, and they could only be, in no particular order: a Nokia phone; an AK47 assault rifle, and most Toyota cars.

Firstly, the humble Nokia phones. I’m thinking of the old 3210 and 3310 here in particular, although one of my own early phones, the 5110, almost smashed my foot into a thousand pieces when I dropped it after another fruitless attempt at getting a great high score in Snake.

Continue reading “Unbreakable, unshakeable, unmistakable, unputdownable” →

Load up Age of Empires II, and I promise you won’t beheading towards defeat

~ Burkey Gaming ~ 1 Comment

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (1999)

Alright, hands up who’s a sore loser? Today I’m too brow-beaten by life and accepting of mediocrity to really care anymore, but I used to be a right screaming shit back in the day. I distinctly remember playing a relaxing game of chess with my brother, no pressure or tension at all, except for my self-professed young grandmaster status getting in the way and letting my ego get the better of me. It looked like I had the game won, until – wouldn’t you know it – I fell right into the trap.

Continue reading “Load up Age of Empires II, and I promise you won’t beheading towards defeat” →

Platforming in the shape of a lovely coconut cream-pie

~ Burkey Gaming ~ Leave a comment

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest (1995)

Look, I know perfectly well why we don’t see any cartoons based on video games anymore; because they’re nearly always terrible. I’d say some of the early 90s Mario cartoons were exceptions, but after that, what have you got? A Zelda that gave Link a voice, which wouldn’t have been a disaster if his voice wasn’t the type you overhear in McDonald’s that makes you start grinding your teeth in rage. A Kirby anime and an F-Zero anime that had about 50 quid an episode behind them, and if you were one of those freaks who preferred dubbed to subbed then you were out of luck.

A Street Fighter cartoon with some hilarious animation and drawing, although the famous M. Bison “Yes, yes!” scene was top-drawer. A Battletoads pilot that never got off the ground. Are any one of these unmissable yet? Perfectly memeable of course, but don’t you watch cartoons for the intricate plot and deep characterisation? What do you mean, you only watch it for the swimsuit episodes…?

Continue reading “Platforming in the shape of a lovely coconut cream-pie” →

Mario Kart mobile isn’t quite the self-powered tour de force you might expect

~ Burkey Gaming ~ Leave a comment

Mario Kart Tour (2019)

It seems anytime I hear about self-driving, autonomous cars, it’s usually as part of some news story talking about, at worst a fatal crash and at best, a testing boo-boo. They’re even trialling autonomous racing cars – then motor racing really will be solely down to the car. But again you have to laugh because they only get a morning’s worth of testing out of their roboracer before it loses the will to live and begins the afternoon by plunging headfirst into the wall. Sorry, I shouldn’t personify these things by saying “will to live”. That’s a dangerous game, because one minute you’ll have a cute Herbie Tesla, the next it’s mowing down civilians by itself on nightly death runs and pinning the blame on you.

Continue reading “Mario Kart mobile isn’t quite the self-powered tour de force you might expect” →

If you and your mother wanna have yourself a time…

~ Burkey Gaming ~ 1 Comment

South Park (1999)

It’s always a bit of a laugh when parents try to censor your viewing and playing habits. Alright, there’s some extreme stuff out there that kids shouldn’t be watching, but it’s always a great thrill for kids when they hear their parents swear, and doubly so when they get to the age when it becomes acceptable for them to swear around their parents. I can’t imagine trying to regulate a kid’s mobile phone in this day and age, not when the kids tend to be more tech savvy than the adults and are usually able to find a way around it.

Continue reading “If you and your mother wanna have yourself a time…” →

The property market is a Wild, Wild, Wild, Wild World

~ Burkey Gaming ~ Leave a comment

Animal Crossing: Wild World (2006)

Almost every bet or prediction I’ve ever made in my life has turned out to be a turkey, you know, which is why I don’t go to betting shops, I don’t play the lotto, and I certainly don’t eat Rowntrees Randoms. To wit, I’ve been predicting, or perhaps more accurately praying, for a drop in house prices for, oh, almost ten years. But oh no, every force in the housing market is out to get old Burkey, so up those houses go.

Continue reading “The property market is a Wild, Wild, Wild, Wild World” →

Some liquid crystal games you could set your watch to

~ Burkey Gaming ~ Leave a comment

Game & Watch (1980)

You know, when you think about it, you can pretty well make a game out of anything. Many’s the time, before ubiquitous internet, when we would have raindrop races, betting on which raindrop would reach the bottom of the window first. Would you call that a misspent youth?

Well, if you wanna talk youth, here’s a game you could try with your kids – have them stand against a wall and put a fiver between their noses and the wall, telling ‘em that whoever breaks first gets nothing, and the other kid keeps the two fivers. That one was a classic, and it probably still works if you can find some physical cash, and a child deprived of that most basic of human rights, the iPad.

Continue reading “Some liquid crystal games you could set your watch to” →