Category Archives: Video Games

Ubisoft’s ‘Wildlands’ Should Raise a Red Flag For Christians

Backstory – Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a new video game from developer/publisher Ubisoft. Wildlands is a tactical cooperative shooter for up to 4 people. In the Wildlands story, a drug cartel named Santa Blanca has risen to power in Bolivia. They have kidnapped a DEA agent who was a mole inside the cartel, and it’s time for the United States to send in the armed group that “doesn’t exist” known as “The Ghosts”.

To promote this upcoming game, Ubisoft has released a short film called Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands: War Within The Cartel. (And the award for longest movie title of the year goes to…) The movie is released under the production label Ubisoft Entertainment Legion of Creatives.

As a Christian and an aficionado of video games, I have seen plenty of “sacrilegious” uses of God and the Bible. It’s unfortunate, but it’s considered “edgy” to rebel against something sacred, and some developers create games that stand against the common conceptions of God and the Bible. Bayonetta did this with it’s perverted take on The Creator. Usually, these twisted tales are fairly generic, targeting “God” or “people of faith”. But this latest attack seems to be more specific and includes a dark perversion of a beautiful passage from the book of Revelation.

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Riptide GP: Renegade Review, Xbox One & Windows 10

Game: Riptide GP: Renegade
Release Date: February 24, 2017
Price: $9.99
Platform: Xbox One, Windows 10 (Also available on PS4, Steam, iOS and Android)

Riptide GP: Renegade is the latest watercraft-based racing game from developer Vector Unit. Vector Unit has found their niche with the racing genre, and it seems to be a comfortable groove for them. Renegade is a ‘back to their roots’ release which harkens back to their popular release Hydro Thunder Hurricane and the two previous Riptide GP games.

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Fallout Shelter Review, Xbox One, Windows 10

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Game: Fallout Shelter,
Release Date: February 7, 2017
Price: Free
Platform: Xbox One, Windows 10

Fallout Shelter by Bethesda Softworks is a free game for Xbox One and Windows 10. There are micro-transactions to boost in-game productivity, but they are optional.

Gameplay

Fallout Shelter starts with your creating a new “Vault”. A random number is selected, but you may choose your own. I quite liked the number selected for me. So off I went to create “Vault 306”.

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Toxic Rocket League community, you win this round

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What is “toxic”

What does it mean to be a toxic community? In multiplayer online video games you are bound to play against some trash-talkers. There is trash talk in physical sports, e-sports, regular life. Some people just talk trash, but they might still respect their opponent and their team. Judging a community’s toxicity is not a science, it’s more of a “feel”. When I play Titanfall 2 online, most people aren’t using voice chat, but when they are, it’s largely not “hate speech” and vitriol. So if I were to judge the Titanfall 2 community, at least on Xbox One, I would say that is not toxic, but also not especially helpful. That’s just how it “feels” to me, and your mileage may vary.

A “toxic” game on the other hand has an apparently plentiful stock of players who have zero respect for others, and they blissfully display this disregard in voice chat, text chat, and private messages. (Thanks for letting me know how “trash” I am through an Xbox Live message. The win wasn’t enough, you have to kick a guy when he’s down?) Continue reading