For everyone who was wondering what a future looks like in which console gaming exists WITHOUT the actual console, the future is NOW. The first steps into this brave new world have been taken by Samsung, partnering their television technology with Microsoft’s Game Pass service to provide players with the opportunity to play major titles such as Halo Infinite, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and more… without a console, a PC, or even purchasing a physical or digital copy of those games. With nothing more than the right Smart TV (provided by Samsung), a Game Pass subscription (provided by Microsoft), a solid internet connection, and a controller ANYBODY can jump straight into many of the largest and most popular games available without owning a game console of any kind. Microsoft’s cloud-based gaming initiative will finally be unleashed on the world this summer like the “fully armed and operational” battle station that they have been building all along…

Join us as we continue our series on the seven churches in the book of Revelation in part 2, the church at Ephesus and the importance of a continual connection that makes this new console-less future work... and the role it plays in our Christian walk as well.

#Connection #Microsoft #Samsung #GamePass #Revelation #Consoles #Videogames #Christian #Christianity #ChristianGamer #God #Jesus

A page is turning on the book of video game history… a page that may be signaling the end of arguably the most iconic gaming expo in the world… E3. E3, or the Electronic Entertainment Expo (if you are into calling things by their full legal names), has served as one of the industry’s largest combined events for over twenty years, and it has served us well. From providing a stage for some of the largest gaming announcements and reveals in history, to acting as an annual pilgrimage for those connected to the industry, E3 has meant something different to each of us over the years. And if you were fortunate enough to attend one of these in person, there really wasn’t an atmosphere quite like it. But with the announcement that this year’s E3 event was fully cancelled (both in-person and virtually), it may be the beginning of the end for this industry stalwart. Or perhaps the end happened several years ago, and nobody bothered to tell E3.

Join us as we begin our series on the "Dangers of Becoming Disconnected" as we explore the future of E3, the seven churches in the book of Revelation, and what the messages within those letters mean to us today as we start with church at Sardis!

#e3 #e32021 #sardis #revelation #videogames #christiangamer #christianity #christianliving #disconnected #god #jesus #podcast

I can’t quite put my finger on why this is true, but for as long as video games have existed gamers have been committed to finding a way to “break” them. Not in a physical sense of smashing them (with the exception of Two Worlds, which I contend truly deserved to be smashed), but in terms of pushing beyond the boundaries of the game to explore what lies on the other side… typically in the hopes of finding a secret level or additional unexplored content. Escaping the walls that the developer created to keep the game on its’ designed narrative path is often part of the fun for many gamers, even if the rewards may not always be very “rewarding”. To be clear, there is a large difference between artificially trying to “break” the game as opposed to fully exploring a game to unlock all of the developer’s intentionally hidden “easter eggs”. Finding all the warp pipes in a Mario game or the hidden skulls in a Halo title? That is designed to be part of the fun as well as a reward for those who search them out. Finding a way to glitch outside of the playable space of the game and getting trapped in some horrible video game “limbo” that doesn’t allow you to either move forward OR return to the original path? That can feel exciting at first… until you realize there is no way back.

Join us as we take a look at Balaam as he attempts one of the most notorious "game-breaking" glitches of all time... and learn a little bit more about why sometimes the donkey knows best.

Star Wars fever may be even higher now than its’ original inception, and as gamers we have been getting some canonical Star Wars games that add to this bounty. Star Wars Battlefront 2 may have been released back in 2017, but thanks to a plot development in the second season of The Mandalorian a key moment from the game has thrust this title back into the limelight. Spoilers lie ahead for those who have not yet finished season 2 of The Mandalorian… and also, what have you been waiting for?

Join us as we take a deeper look at Iden Versio, the playable antagonist/protagonist of Star Wars Battlefront II as well as Mary, the mother of Jesus... and along the way we will reflect on how dramatically the plan they thought they were following diverged from their ACTUAL purpose.  And this truth is the same for us as well...our lives may have diverged from our plans, but that doesn’t mean we have been shifted from HIS purpose. He knew where we would be right now, and we are still in a position to fulfill the destiny that He placed inside us. So don’t lose faith in His plan… even if where we are currently at right now isn’t exactly where we thought we would be. 

Many developers “say” they are going to continue to support their game after launch, but what they really mean is they will provide a couple of bug patches and throw some DLC content against the wall to see if it sticks before tossing in the towel. If we are REALLY lucky, they will add some additional content on the game’s anniversary date that probably should have been part of the original game in the first place. But that is clearly NOT the case with the Halo: Master Chief Collection… it has been nearly EIGHT YEARS after the release of this title, and we are STILL getting brand new content and free updates.  Now, I don’t want to sound ungrateful for all of this extra Halo goodness… I really don’t. It just feels like every time I get a hankering to dust off the ol’ MCC for some classic Halo action, my console always seems to think NOW is the PERFECT time for a 30gb update that renders my game unplayable until it has finished installing. I appreciate the extra content… I truly do. I just wish the timing of these updates didn’t always seem to find a way to coincide with the incredibly small portions of time I have available to play a game.

Join us as we take a deeper look at this “warzone” of automatic updates vs. intentional downloads... and deal with the reality that it runs deeper than just our gaming preferences. It is at the heart of many of the deepest problems that can plague our lives, and I am not talking about our video game installation decisions. What we choose to “download” into our lives is of far greater significance than we may often realize… and if we are not active gatekeepers of what we allow our eyes to see, our minds to ponder, and our souls to ingest, we can unintentionally open ourselves up to harmful content that can damage those things that we value the most…our faith, our relationships, and our commitments.

Well, mark this down under news that NOBODY saw coming… devoid of all of the usual hints and teases that accompany a blockbuster announcement of this magnitude, during the 20th anniversary event Kingdom Hearts 4 was announced this week to a worldwide audience of fans who are already in an uproar over a game that we didn’t even know was in active development. I was anticipating some more remasters, maybe another cellphone game that will be super-confusing and weird, and if we are REALLY lucky maybe they will announce some DLC that is actually worth buying (out of all of those, we actually DID get a cellphone game announcement. And I am sure it will find a way to be super weird). In a business in which it is hard to keep ANY surprise under wraps, the announcement of KH4 is a BIG one… and for a lot of reasons.

Join us as we unpack this news about not only a NEW Kingdom Hearts, but reflect on the importance of moving on to the next arc in OUR journey during this walk of faith that we are on.  The Kingdom of Heaven is looking for willing hearts who are here for more than just the consumption of what has already been done… it is time for us to add our hearts to the story. To seek and to save those who are waiting to be set free, one heart for His kingdom at a time

With Microsoft’s combination of Xbox Live and the Game Pass continuing to set the bar for online console gaming, it was only a matter of time before Sony finally decided to provide an equivalent solution for their loyal fan base… and Sony has finally answered that question. Well… kind of… and also not really. Sony’s long-awaited answer is to merge the current benefits of their online multiplayer service with their PlayStation Now game library into one platform… with three separate price points based on your interest in their back catalog and the additional games available from other publishers. To be honest, that sounds a LOT like Game Pass so far. But there is ONE major difference between these two services that may impact your decision to pick up the highest cost version of PS+ available… while Microsoft includes ALL of their first-party releases (Halo Infinite, Gears, Forza, Flight Simulator etc.) on Game Pass the very first day they are released, Sony will not be doing the same thing.

Join us as we take a deeper look at the issue both Sony and Microsoft are facing and the identical conundrum that most of us struggle with in life... are we giving our very best to God?  Or just the rest of what we have left of our time, energy, and abilities?  Let's dive in!

#Sony #PlayStation #Microsoft #Xbox #PlayStationPlus #GamePass #Christian #ChristianLiving #Jesus #God #ChristianGamer #VideoGames

It was HIM… it was always him. Long before I was taunted by villains like Sephiroth and Liquid Snake, and years prior to the first time I had someone troll me over my headset while playing Halo, there was this DOG. This dog was the first character who ever damaged my gaming self-esteem and made me actually TALK BACK to the screen. Bowser and Ganon may have been the first “big bad bosses” that I ever faced, but they never hurt me the way that this dog did. It was that LAUGH… that painful act of betrayal from man’s best friend as he popped up from the bushes to mock my failure after missing the ducks flying across the screen. I was supposed to be there hunting ducks… but they never felt like the actual enemies I was trying to defeat in the game. It was always the dog. I highly doubt that I am the only person who wanted to keep shooting at the screen when the original gaming “hater” popped up with his scornful laugh after a failed level. You know you did too… and we both know he had it coming.

Join us as we take a deeper dive into our very first "trolling" experience and learn a powerful lesson through the process.  Engaging in pointless battles with the “Duck Hunt dogs” in our lives is more than just a waste of our time and energy… it pulls us off of our mission and gives them their only path to victory. Don’t allow the laughing images of those who hold our past against us and mock our present attempts at change to steal our future… their insults are hollow and in time they will only be remembered as a footnote in your story.

#Nintendo #DuckHunt #Dog #DuckHuntDog #Trolling #Trolls #Nehemiah #Haters #Hater #GamePass #Christian #ChristianLiving #Jesus #God #ChristianGamer #VideoGames

They say you should never meet your heroes… I guess we are about to find out if that is true. Move over Mando… there is a brand new “helmet removing” controversy brewing. In a move that is quoted as being “twenty years in the making”, the new Halo television series is taking the incredibly bold step of removing the helmet of the Master Chief, allowing fans to fully see this iconic character’s face for the very first time. Since the part will not be played by the actor who has provided the voice of the Chief in each of his previous gaming adventures, our view of the Master Chief will be changed permanently (and literally) the moment his ever-present helmet is removed.

Is this really a big deal? You know, to see a face… and a fictional character’s face, at that? What does it really change?  And how much does it matter if our hero looks the way we expected?  In many ways, mankind’s struggle to accept the reality of Jesus Christ as the physical representation of the living God has been mired in this exact same predicament… for a period of approximately 33 or so years, God came down, took off his helmet, and let us see Him for exactly who He truly is. And He did it as a human… with a face we could see, with a heart we could break, and with hands we would scar. The face that He showed us certainly surprised everyone living at the time… and it might surprise you, too. And we may find that we are able to relate to the face He revealed under the helmet much more than we realize.

#Halo #Xbox #MasterChief #Microsoft #Chief #Christian #ChristianLiving #Jesus #God #ChristianGamer #VideoGames

Dino Crisis fans, it looks like our looooooong wait is finally over and Capcom is finally giving us the sequel we have been asking for… wait. WAIT. Ummmm… that’s not a new Dino Crisis. What is this… EXOPRIMAL? What is an Exoprimal? How is it that Capcom finally pulled the lever marked “make a dinosaur video game” and something other than a new Dino Crisis is being made? It kind of feels like a cruel bait and switch, as I along with my fellow long-suffering fans of Dino Crisis kind of feel a bit misled. I know that it is unfair to think that every dinosaur-based video game has to be a new Dino Crisis, but COME ON. This is from Capcom, the studio behind the Dino Crisis games, it has random dinosaurs appearing for no real good reason, it features a red-headed protagonist with a hair cut that bears at least a little resemblance to the main character from Dino Crisis… there is even a former producer from Dino Crisis on the Exoprimal team. I can’t help but feel that this new game is willing to give me a few of the pieces of what I am looking for from a Dino Crisis sequel/reboot… but just enough to remind me that what I was really asking for isn’t happening.

Join us as we reflect on this as well as that reality that we are more prone to “Dino Crisis” substitutions in our lives than we may care to admit… most of us have prayed to the Lord for some specific requests, but all too often we accept the very first “answer” that comes… a response that may not have come from Him and does not have our best interests at heart.

#Dinosaurs #Dinosaur #DinsoaurGame #Exoprimal #DinoCrisis #Prayer #Christian #ChristianLiving #Jesus #God #ChristianGamer #VideoGames