Games

On Sunday, December 28th our friends at Xbox 360 Community Playdate in Call of Duty: World at War. World at War is the 5th game in the CoD franchise and just came out a couple months ago.

Community Playdates are Microsoft-promoted specific days for a community of gamers to get together in a particular game and play with the rest of the Xbox community. In this case, several HCG members will send out game invites to those interested in playing. The playdate has been promoted on xbox.com and on the Xbox dashboard.

On the most recent episode of the Hardcore Christian Gamer podcast Drew said 294 people have expressed interest and several of the playdate hosts had to create free silver Xbox Live accounts - which are the easiest way to expand your friends list or have a "clan list". The membership of the website has almost doubled since the playdate was announced and some Christian ministry has even happened with people who found out about the site because of the playdate.

If you are interested in playing, read about it on xbox.com. Otherwise, please pray for all the people who might have a chance to be witnessed to through this Sunday night.

Arstechnica posted an article about the power consumption of game consoles and its pretty startling. The Xbox 360 consumes 119 watts while the PS3 consumes 150 watts. If I left my 360 on all year it would cost $103.

This data comes from a report by Natural Resources Defense Counci that suggests several factors contributing to increasing power usage by consoles.

“
1. The overall number of video game consoles in U.S. households is increasing
2. Increases in the average power consumption of consoles
3. Power management features are not easily accessible to users or do not exist on certain video game consoles
4. Many video game consoles are left on for extended periods of time in Idle mode.
5. Video game console manufacturers continue to offer additional entertainment features on their consoles
with each new generation.
6. U.S. consumers often use their video game consoles as high-definition videodisc players.
”

They also make several suggestions to decrease the power consumption. The big one is simply turning the console off when done using it. Too many people leave theirs on and as consoles become more of a multimedia device, it will be easier to forget. Also, all game consoles should have an auto-power down feature and we should all be using it. Manufacturers should use the most efficient power supplies and optimize power usage during movie viewing.

I recently was able to start using the New Xbox Experience (NXE) through their preview program. All Xbox 360 users get it on the 19th. The NXE completely revamps the Xbox 360 interface which had become overly complex when trying to navigate through the many items available for playing or watching. Additionally it adds avatar characters which gamers can customize and that will show up in certain games.

One of the biggest changes people have been looking forward to is the partnership Microsoft struck with Netflix which allows streaming of a portion of their catalog through the Xbox 360. (Streaming has previously been available to PCs, Macs and a set-top box)

I wanted to take this opportunity to recommend some Christian and other inspirational content I've found in their streaming catalog.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed - Ben Stein examines situations of scientists being discriminated against for expousing intelligent design. He ends up cornering a couple atheist scientists on where they think life came from. Directed Panspermia FTW!

One Night with the King - The story of Queen Esther and King Xerxes. Esther hides her Hebrew background to survive and ends up selected to be Xerxes' queen. Her humility and strength played a huge role in her selection. Though she knew she risked death she went to the king to ask him to save the Jews. The film is beautifully done and both actors do a great job.

Thr3e - The thriller from Ted Dekker brought to screen. The Riddle Killer, responsible for the death of police psychologist Jennifer Peters' brother, appears to be behind the attempted murder and stalking of seminary student Kevin Parson. Parson is given a deadline to confess a certain sin or die.

Hermie and Friends - Animated videos for kids. I haven't had a chance to watch these but I hear great things.

God's Outlaw: The Story of William Tyndale - Known as the "Father of the English Bible," Tyndale worked tirelessly to translate and publish an English Bible during an era when prayers uttered in English were outlawed.

Remember, both Netflix and Blockbuster have gigantic DVD mail rental catalogs but Netflix's internet streaming catalog is much smaller. This is some of the best I've found to stream from Netflix but there is more.