Christ Centered Gamer Blog

We’ve been running this niche site for over twenty years now.  We do have some paid reviewers, but many like my husband and I are still volunteer.  We’re blessed to have our basic expenses like server hosting fees covered by the generosity of Patreon and Paypal supporters.   Our paid reviewers get a small sum of $25 per review, which is more of a gesture of appreciation than a sustainable living wage.  

This month, my husband’s employer gave him an ultimatum to be vaccinated or unemployed come February.  Given that we have natural immunity from recovering from covid, we feel that his mandate is both unnecessary and unconstitutional.  With a potential job loss in the near future, we have to evaluate our financial situation. 

My husband and I both work since this site doesn’t generate much income.   We’re happy to keep it running as we see it as a worthwhile ministry to help parents and Christians determine which games are suitable for their family. 

We’ve recently been blessed with over 3,000 Twitch followers.  With a milestone like that comes opportunities.  This week we’ve been offered a sponsorship opportunity for Raid Shadow Legends which I realize is a meme at this point.  With that said, it’s hard to turn down an extra $150 when the site typically brings in $400/month.  Would we be selling out to do streams of this nature?   Other Streaming opportunities from Daredrop and Compassion International hit my mailbox this week as well so I’ll be looking into those.

Currently, YouTube and Twitch streams do not provide us with any income. We have yet to get a payout from either platform.  We really appreciate our Patreon, Ko-Fi, and Paypal donators.  We still have yet to get our first Subscribestar supporter.  As a way of saying thanks to them, we’ll be posting a game giveaway code every day this month.  Thanks for your encouragement and support!    

It’s been a year since we were pulled into #GamerGate.  A lot has happened since then.  We’ve been around since 2000 and were quite accustomed with people poking fun at our reviews and sharing them on various forums for a laugh.  Parents and Christians still found them useful, so we pressed on and grew thicker skin over the years.  Throughout our existence on the internet, we have received a lot of good constructive criticism to which we have taken to heart and have implemented into our

Hi, all! I'm Trip.

I just thought I would give a quick introduction as the newest member of the CCG blogging team. I've been involved with the site for almost seven years and have been a moderator in the forums here for several years now. I joined the site seeking a safe online community that shared some of my interests, and that's exactly what I found. The funny thing is, I'm not even a huge gamer, but I liked the people here so much that I never left. If you're reading this, you've found a good place.

Things you should know about me: I've spent over half of my life in Asia. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I can speak any cool languages or anything. I know, I suck. I'm an avid book reader and film viewer, so the majority of my blog posts will probably be things that I've most recently experienced in that realm. That being said, I might throw in a music review in there every once in a while. I play guitar like 263 other people that you know. I can eat an entire box of CTT (Cinnamon Toast Crunch for you casuals) without breaking a sweat. Like my log-line says, I'm currently a senior English and Writing major at Houghton College, without a single clue what to do after this semester. I joined the blogging team to test a little more of the journalistic waters and to publicly hone my craft; ccgr graciously let me on-board.

Things you shouldn't know about me: I never wear un...hey, wait a minute. Moving on.

Feel free to drop a comment saying hi if you'd like, or don't, whatever. I sincerely hope that you enjoy my blogging contributions!

Today we got our Grilled Cheesus from http://www.grilledcheesus.com. It carries a $40 price tag, but some of the profits (not sure how much exactly) go toward charities that feed the hungry.  Here's what the unit looks like:

Operation is pretty straight forward; you have to let it heat up a bit.  If you want to have a sandwich with Jesus' face front and center, it can make one at a time.  If you don't mind a half blessing, you can cook two.  We pre-buttered our bread and put on our cheese and waited until both lights had an orange light to let us know it was done.  I'm not sure why the green side has an orange bulb in it, but it works.

Here's what the inside looks like.  It's pretty easy to clean; we just wiped ours off with a soapy rag.

Hallelujah!! Here's the finished product:

The kids and hubby approved of the look and taste of the sandwiches.  I'm sure we'll be blessed with many more Grilled Cheesus meals in our future.  

Compromise

According to Wikipedia, compromise is when you give up a demand in order to make a deal.

The Bible does not really indicate whether compromise is good or bad, but warns us of the consequence of compromising the wrong things.

1 Chronicles 10:13 ESV 

"So Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the Lord in that he did not keep the command of the Lord, and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance."

Saul compromised for sure, and he paid for it.

Cheating is a topic that has perhaps been thoroughly discussed in most social gaming groups, but still stays a very controversial topic for some. As a "rehabilitated" cheater I try to understand this controversy in the gaming world in a more liberal way.

Just the other day, my nephew(14 years old) exposed the "cheater" I once saw in myself.  It was interesting to see how he looked up cheats(just like I would) even before installing the game.  It seemed innocent to me.  After all, I had grown out of the cheating habit quite easily.  The rate that games are becoming more "arcadish", is astonishingly fast.  Big titles like Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon have been humbled down to a very easier difficulty level, and are appealing to a lot of casual gamers.  That's why it seemed cool to me, but after a lot of thought, I've come to another outlook point.

Cheats are immediate.  In fact, you could complete a lot of games by typing a "win mission" cheat.  Therefore, it's also understandable that people are quick to demand things these days.  You skip that effort = reward system, which especially makes up core game parts in RPGs.  So in real life, one would be more prone to demand things.  You would also expect things to happen in a very short time - with the minimum effort.  That could be why we misunderstand the more profound things in life. 

Would we be Christians if God had given us cheats?  I don't think so.  I mean, prayer especially requires time.  Emotional wounds also need time to heal.  Everything needs time, and that's what cheats try to bypass. 

I still think it's okay to cheat in a game.  However, one must realize that you're like a sponge, absorbing everything around you.  That which you absorbed, will be released or accounted for at the end of the day. If you incorporate a cheater's mindset into your own, you might face difficulties ahead.

Having beaten Skyrim and not thinking too highly of Benny Hin, I found this youtube video absolutely hilarious.  

I thought to myself, that would be an awesome avatar.  So I downloaded the movie using http://keepvid.com/

I then added text to the movie using Windows Movie Maker.  

After the text was in place, I converted it to a gif using this free program: http://evanolds.com/movtogif.html

And now I have this:

Lately I've been playing with SwapNote and it's been fun sending notes back and forth between my husband and members of this site.  As fun as this system is, it can be abused by sending crude drawings or recordings containing profanity.  On the flip side, this can be a great way to share the gospel and uplift believers as well as sharing a verse or two with complete strangers.  I struggle with memorizing scripture but actually taking the time to jot it down helps rather than just reading it alone.   If you'd like to be a member of our 3DS Bible study post your friend code and let us know! 

Saw Courageous with my Youth Group Saturday. Great movie! Great message! More people need to see it. When we went, it was my Youth Group, and about 10 other people.

This is not a get rich quick scheme but many people have made good money mining bitcoins.  What is a bitcoin you ask?  Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer currency. Peer-to-peer means that no central authority issues new money or tracks transactions. These tasks are managed collectively by the network.  New coins are generated by a network node each time it finds the solution to a difficult mathematical problem.  There will be a maximum of 21,000,000 generated bitcoins and because of this limit, bitcoins are divisible to 8 decimal places.  In other words you can send fractions of bitcoins to people.  Like many currencies the value fluctuates.  As of this blog entry its between $13 and $14 USD.

As of July 2011, there are just over 6.8 million bitcoins in existence.  New coins are slowly "mined" into existence by running a program that searches tirelessly for a solution to a very difficult math problem. When a solution is found, the user may tell everyone of the existence of this new found solution, along with other information, packaged together in what is called a "block".  Blocks contain 50 bitcoins at present. This amount is an incentive for people to perform the computation work required for block generation. Roughly every 4 years, the number of bitcoins that can be "mined" in a block reduces by 50%.  In other words, while the bounty is still 50 bitcoins, hop on this gravy train!

You have two options when it comes to mining for bitcoins.  If you have a good video card, you can try going solo and crunch numbers for weeks or months for a big payout. Or, if you prefer a steady payout, you can join a mining pool and equally share the bounty for your share of work put into it.  If you have a slower video card, a mining pool will be the only way you can stand a chance at finding the blocks before someone else does.

The better the hardware, the better the hash rates you'll get.  ATI is taking the crown here.  Here's how my systems fare at my house.

Nintendo has threatened to brick 3DS devices that have been modified by hardware or software. To protest, Defective by Design will be sending bricks with a note to the chairman of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime.

What do you think about this?  Does Nintendo have a right to render devices we purchase as useless?  Last time I checked, 3DS's are still selling for $250.   Once we buy the device isn't it ours to do as we please? Is it wrong for me to put a sticker on my DS? Can I change the casing if it cracks or scratches?  We have replaced the scratched screen on our DS Lite, we have cleaned the broken trigger buttons in an attempt to repair them.  If the repairs fail it's our own fault, I don't blame Nintendo.   I can understand this tinkering voids the warranty.  If the system broke while it was under warranty I would have send it back to them to fix.

I understand that people modify the hardware beyond standard maintenance. Perhaps for these individuals their system should be blocked from the Nintendo network so they don't interfere with "vanilla" systems.  I think bricking the device by rendering it useless is going too far. Here's an quote from the Terms of service (chapter 3).  I think they mean business:

"You understand that the Nintendo 3DS System specifications and the Nintendo 3DS Service are constantly evolving and that we may update or change the Nintendo 3DS System or the Nintendo 3DS Service in whole or in part, without notice to you. Such updates may be required for you to play new Nintendo 3DS games, enjoy new features, or continue to access the Nintendo 3DS Service. After the Nintendo 3DS menu is updated, any existing or future unauthorized technical modification of the hardware or software of your Nintendo 3DS System, or the use of an unauthorized device in connection with your system, will render the system permanently unplayable."

What about software modifications?   That's awfully vague.  Chances are the DS Cart system I'm using is violating the terms of service.  The kicker is that I am not using it to pirate games.  I use it so I have all my games with me and don't have to worry about losing them.  Have you seen how small these DS cartridges are?  Again I don't agree with hacking the system to ruin the game play for other people.  I think Xbox has taken the proper approach to block non standard systems from the network.

Has Nintendo gone too far?

We just posted our Crysis 2 review today. As fun as this game is I was taken aback by all the language in it. It's not just this game but a trend I'm seeing in many games we've been reviewing lately.  What gives? Yeah I get it, in stressful situations people swear, it may add some realism but to me I think it's exaggerating a bit.  I hang around non-Christians and they don't drop the F bomb every 3 minutes.  I miss the options to disable swearing and blood, can we have those back please?  Or should I say "Can we have those *#&$^'n options back please?"

It took a lot of preparation and patience to get this new site up and running. I hope you like the new look and if you have any suggestions, feedback or encouragement, I'm all ears!

God Bless!

Cheryl

I'm sure not many people were interested in a feed of our seldom updated FAQs and Walkthroughs.  The RSS feed now points to computer reviews.  Enjoy!  When we migrate to the new site, the console and PC reviews will most likely be merged.  Yay!

In the presence of arms, the law grows silent.

Since I haven't posted yet, I'm going to inaugurate this with a bit of Science Fiction fanaticism. Namely, I'm going to take you through my favorite franchises and such. At the end, I'll include a top 5 list with my favorite Science Fiction shows is order.

The title of this blog, the translation for which is in italics, is the title of an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, my favorite Star Trek show. Why is it my favorite? For starters, it has deep, convincing characters and incredible plot arcs. It dives into Trek mythology deeper than any other show has, especially with the Cardassians and the Bajorans. It is also one of the few shows where the status quo changes after every episode. If there was significant damage to a runabout in the previous episode, odds are you won't see it, and will likely hear Chief O'Brien complaining about it.