By John Walker on May 20th, 2009 at 8:48 pm.
So it appears there’s to be another Left Behind game. Despite the best efforts of an apparent misinformation campaign that set out to destroy the first of the Christian RTS series, they have risen like Lazarus and are back with… What, you’ve never heard of the Left Behind game? That might have something to do with the information campaign that observed how absolutely astonishingly awful the first one was. But you can’t keep angry multi-millionaires down, and Left Behind: Tribulation Forces is announced for the masses this Christmas. Announced in one of the most incredible press releases I’ve ever seen. Read on.
I tend to think the notion of Rapture is quite an appealing one. All at once all the loony fundamentalist Christians in the world would disappear, forever. (“You’d never say that about Muslims!” It would be nice if all the loony fundamentalist Muslims went with them.) Anyway, it’s this daft Rapture idea that forms the core of the multi-billion dollar Left Behind business, that began with a set of books.
Declaration of interests: I’m a Christian. Church-going, Jesus-loving, God-botherer. And yet somehow, at the same time, I’ve managed to keep a grip on my critical faculties. So when someone makes a “Christian” version of something, I don’t immediately declare it a bonus chapter to the Bible and build it a shrine. I also promise I’m not part of a malevolent campaign paid to badmouth the Left Behind games, spreading lies and misinformation about them into the evil liberal media. (I was, however, paid by PC Gamer to write about the first game, and reported how utterly bloody terrible it is, and you can read the result here.) Why would I suggest such a strange thing? From today’s press release for Tribulation Forces:
“Public Relations Director, Tammy La Barbera, says, ‘The original game ‘Eternal Forces’ became one of the most highly publicized games of 2006, as politically motivated groups launched an all-out war against the game, by making false claims that the game included conversion to Christianity as a requirement or gave points for killing Muslims. The media frenzy resulted in feature stories on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX NEWS, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, and numerous other worldwide networks and in print in the San Jose Chronicle, Newsweek, Wired and many others. After more than two years and a third-party investigation, it was determined that the Tides Center, a taxpayer supported non-profit, and others, launched and paid for a campaign to smear the game and Company, which may have resulted in a $200 million loss in shareholder value as the stock plummeted as a result of their misinformation campaign. Left Behind Games is a publicly traded company.’”
There are no links to any examples of this worldwide misinformation, and we’ve approached the Tides Center for a comment regarding the accusations. From our research many of the original accusations that were made at the time have since been removed, however a recurring theme in detractors’ statements was that the game promoted violence against non-Christians. There’s an example here on Game Politics. This is certainly untrue, and it was this theme that created the media frenzy. The reality is the game’s propaganda is more insidious, but in no way does it ever suggest that non-believers should be killed. While we’ve no way of knowing who was behind the spreading of this information, it’s certainly the case that there was a great deal of press reporting these false claims.
I’ve found what appears to be the only BBC article on the subject. The article reports the (sometimes inaccurate) accusations made against the game by various other Christian groups, and then gives a lengthy right of reply to Left Behind Games co-found Jeffrey S Frichner, putting this right, in which he makes some odd statements. One being:
“The game itself is just a great game. People of other faiths could play it and not know it’s Christian. [The game evangelises] but it is doing it in a way which is very respectful, not Bible-thumping.”
Well, aside from that it’s anything but a great game – it’s really quite impressively badly made – you have to wonder at a game that a player might not realise is Christian, but at the same time is attempting to evangelise. You’d imagine it wasn’t doing a very good job at one of those tasks. However, it’s utter nonsense to pretend for a second that there’s some sort of ambiguity as to its messages. Between levels you’re given screens full of text espousing fundamentalist viewpoints, implying evolution is a myth, or stating why the Bible is authentic, while it plays Christian pop at you. Well, take a look for yourself: evolution denounced, and archaeological evidence. (“Let this encouragement move you to dust off your Bible and dig into the evidence for yourself!” – Nope, no way to infer that this is Christian at all!)
So what is the reality of the games? Well, it’s true that you can kill people. However, to do so loses you morality, and lose it all and you lose the game. The suggestion apparently made during its original release that you were slaughtering unbelievers were wholly untrue. There’s definitely a moral consequence to harmful behaviour, and murder is condemned. However, regarding the claim that there’s no converting – I can’t see how this could possibly be argued. The core point of the game is to recruit believers to your army. You either win people over to your side, or you don’t. You convince them to join you by playing music at them, by evangelising to them. Once they’re with you, you need to have them pray regularly or they go back to their sinful ways. Just how exactly can the claim be made that this is not conversion? And brilliantly – by far my favourite thing about the game – if you have your troops spend too long in the vicinity of heathens playing their rock music, they lose their faiths too. Convert them and they’ll shed their black gothic clothing and put on a nice pullover instead!
It’s a deeply sexist game. Only men can be trained to be Builders and Disciples, while only women can become Nurses. Also very strange is the game’s decision to refer to male converts as “Friends” and female converts as “Women Friends”. It’s an unsettling misogynistic streak, and is clearly very deliberate.
The inclusion of in-game advertising is another odd ingredient. These aren’t the plugs for megachurches or Christian literature you might expect, but billboards for Gamestop and EB Games, and other corporations who sell the games the Left Behind people are so publically upset about. It’s hard not to read this accepting of the secular buck as a hypocrisy.
Also, rather brilliantly, if you play in multiplayer you can control the Antichrist’s forces and attack and kill the Christians, which does seem to ever-so-slightly go against the game’s purported intent to provide a non-violent gaming experience for all the family.
It’s important to recognise that Left Behind: Eternal Forces is a dreadful game separately from any of its religious themes. Strip out the Christian fundamentalism and you’re left with an embarrassingly poor, extremely buggy RTS, in an engine that’s comically awful. It’s Metascore is 38 (even IGN US gave it below 6!), and the majority of these reviews say the same thing: ignore the Christian message, it’s a bad game anyway. No conspiracy, no agenda, just the tradition of reviewing outlets reviewing games.
Anyway, that’s the past, and Tribulation Forces (also the name of the second book in the all-conquering, millions selling series) is already available via Christian outlets. It will be released to the masses later this year, and feature a few changes.
“This new second chapter in the LEFT BEHIND PC Game series includes significant new features, improvements, maps and missions. The game includes 45 single player missions including tutorials and an all-new skirmish mode allowing players to play against the computer by themselves or with up to 7 friends online. There are 39 skirmish battle multiplayer maps and 3 different multiplayer modes of play.”
We’ve not seen a copy of the new game, so we don’t yet know how the skirmishes and multiplayer modes adapt to the morality, nor whether they’ll have fixed the completely useless camera, or have incorporated an engine from the 21st century. Looking at the minuscule screenshots (and those at Just Adventure), we’d suggest they certainly haven’t.
20/05/2009 at 20:57 Vinraith says:
Paranoid AND insane, how charming. To the degree that I can speak for my country let me just say: sorry about these guys, rest of the world.
20/05/2009 at 21:05 D says:
Thank you Vinraith.
20/05/2009 at 21:06 Mike says:
The company also does another game called ‘Isles of Derek’.
20/05/2009 at 21:08 Blast Hardcheese says:
To be fair to US, they DO live in other places too.
“Them” being idiots.
Side note, their site is WONDERFUL. Copyright 1999, with the claim of “the largest and most visited adventure site on the internet!”
Let’s plant a forest using their lies as fertilizer. I mean, nothing will grow since this level of bullshit is usually toxic, but we can say we tried.
Oooh! Oooh! Delving further, reading made up reviews, we can see even by Christian standards they’re way off. The guy summarizes “The Tribulation” (Rapture) as “… as if two of every three people vanished”.
Really? There are THAT many Christians in China and India? No? What about Russia? No? What’s that you say? There are MORE Muslims in the entire world than Christians?
Even just accounting for the US (which this Spartan flavored madness) is obviously supposed to be set in, per capita we are not 2/3rds Jesus loving (although if people like reminding themselves of how Romans nailed the poor guy and let him bake for three days before he died horribly, that’s cool too) and that doesn’t even take into account the crazed dangerous cults like the Born Again Evangelical churches (the one Ted Haggard founded comes to mind, but I can’t remember the name) or the polygamist Mormons in southern Utah.
No. They are wrong, they are making bad propagandist games, and if this game receives any attention it will hopefully open some schmuck’s eyes to just how paranoid and crazy these cults are.
And really, Christian rock as a way to recruit people? Here, I can win the game easily. Convince the leather clad people that Black Sabbath is Christian Metal. YOU WIN!!! (Done rambling.)
Wait, not done. Forgot the most important link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR5X04bxMbE
20/05/2009 at 21:10 Troy Goodfellow says:
Great summary of the game, John. LB was a terrible game that only learned one lesson from RTS design school – make the tutorial as tedious and pointless as possible. The games are far from violent, but aren’t much good for all that.
By the way, people should read the summaries of the books scene by scene at Slacktivist (http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/index.html). The writer is a Christian who thinks the books are terrible theology but even worse literature. He’s now hard at work on analyzing Book 2.
20/05/2009 at 21:14 James G says:
Yup, ours is called Stephen Green, although I’m sure there are plenty of others who aren’t quite so good at getting their names in the papers.
I do like the idea of both fundamentalist-shouty Christians and Muslims getting raptured at the same time, I can imagine the utter looks of confusion on their faces.
20/05/2009 at 21:14 Denis V. says:
I’ve met the “Left Behind” people at E3 2006 (They were located near the “Just Cause” demo station, and I went there couple of times to re-play the demo), and they practically shoved the press folder into my hands, while claiming that it’s the best game ever. When I explained that I’m a secular Israeli gaming journalist, and my audience is mostly Jewish or non-religious, I remember them saying that it’s not an evangelical game but one to bring message of peace and tolerance to all. Heee.
20/05/2009 at 21:15 NNeko says:
I’m just astonished that they’re thinking that their target audience will have up to 7 friends online. Isn’t that where all of the heathens hang out?
But now that I’ve got that out of the way, it’s worth noting that there are plenty of reasonable God-Botherers out there who think the bizarre-to-the-point-of-Schrodingers-Feline-esque PMD beliefs of the Rapture folks (upon which all of this Left Behind whatnot is based on) are not just wrong, but confusingly to the point of dangerously so. See a series on this topic by another God-Botherer at: http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/index.html
20/05/2009 at 21:26 solipsistnation says:
A third on reading the slacktivist blog. He’s an interesting guy.
20/05/2009 at 21:33 John Walker says:
Yeah, I decided that people might get cross if I used RPS to get into some eschatological analysis of why the Left Behind series is such utter bullshit, predicated on fear and an abandoning of educated Biblical interpretation. So I left that bit out : ) This Fred Clark seems a good sort.
20/05/2009 at 21:38 Serondal says:
Funny, I mean the entire book/game is based around something that isn’t even in the bible which never mentions the rapture or the coming of the anti-christ in any certain terms. The entire series of a work of fiction based on a fantsay that faithful Christians will be spared the horrors of the end of the world which it never says in the Bible O.o And yah the game is horrible I played a demo I believe, if you can call it playing I had no idea what was going on. They need to stick to books and movies staring Kirk Cameron with which you can NOt go wrong ;P
20/05/2009 at 21:41 Tei says:
How can people be cristian and negate the evolution? What strange kind of cristian are these? I think the pope has accepted the evolution, If you don’t follow the pope, you are not cristian, you are something else. And what the fu is this “rapture” thing? This seems to me like another sect in the making, like Scientology.
20/05/2009 at 21:44 Serondal says:
Tei you’re way behind Rapture is not something new mate ;P It predates scientology by a LOT. It is a misconception that just because people are faithful Chrisitans they’ll up and disappear when the end of the world starts instead of getting to enjoy it with everyone else. There is a mention in one part of the bible of Jews being marked but it never says they’ll disappear :P
As far as the Pope goes they accept aliens too so . . . I’ve no faith in the Catholic Church and never have, they’ve about as far away from Christian is it is possible to get. The worship idols openly for example, protect child abusers, and used to sell the rights to forgivness of sin in ADVANCE to one actually commiting the sin O.o strange stuff
20/05/2009 at 21:45 PC Monster says:
Arg. This series again.
I was conned into reading the first one by my local librarians (don’t trust ‘em) who’d left this in the sci-fi section of all places, so dumb old me took it home and read, cover to cover, one of the most nauseating pieces of fiction I’ve ever had the misfortune to come across. It was…awful. I couldn’t stop reading it, thinking it was all some horrible joke and the next page would reveal all to be so. But no. Hateful, in every sense of the word. That’s it has gone on to become a best-selling series of novels makes me somewhat ill. Thankfully there’s no danger of the games – and I use that term loosely – doing anywhere near so well.
20/05/2009 at 21:46 Mil says:
Coming from a traditionally Catholic country, my only contact with Biblical literalism is what I read on the intertubes. To me it seems quaintly esoteric, like numerology or divination. But I must admit its influence on American politics is somewhat disturbing.
20/05/2009 at 21:54 Tei says:
Oooh… the other types of Cristian. I always get confused. Is like the American Footbal, and Soccer. Why these guys call Footbal a sport that don’t use the FOOT!?.
I live in a suposedly cristian country (spain) but I don’t see here any of these weird things that you can see in USA.
20/05/2009 at 21:56 Serondal says:
the left behind books are like the other side of the coin to the Davinci code and Angels and Demons kind of books. there are people that take those WAY to seriously and claim they’re trying to defame the church ect ect when in reality they’re simply fiction, it is ALL fiction. People take all these books WAY to seriously. People that take either series as fact need to take a step back and think for themselves and explore all religions and answers and make their own choice. Even if that choice is that you don’t believe in God at all, at least you made it for yourself. God ultimately can’t force you to believe anything , but man seems to be pretty good at tricking other people into beliving something that isn’t true in ANYONEs book. These people are a good example, as stated above it’s a good thing they’re no good at making games ;)
We call it foot ball because you RUN with your feet with the ball instead of kicking it. Personally I think it is about time we rename to too it gets confusing, but at the same time I dunno what TO call it. Maybe carrying ball with hand . . ball. Then again there is foot to ball contact in Kick off and field goal attempts so I dunno
20/05/2009 at 21:56 Rick says:
I hope the Rapture comes and sucks all these loons into the sky. Then it really will be Heaven on Earth. :)
20/05/2009 at 21:56 Okami says:
Hooray for FSTDT!
http://www.fstdt.com/fundies/top100.aspx?archive=1
20/05/2009 at 21:59 Hidden_7 says:
American culture is great because it’s western culture but More. Take everything to its logical conclusion, and then push it way past that. Seeing British reality shows get remade as American ones really highlights this, I feel.
Given that, I think the prevalence of Biblical Literalism in America makes a lot of sense. Take being Christian to its logical conclusion, then push it over the edge.
20/05/2009 at 22:02 James G says:
@Tei
Only the Roman Catholic church recognised the authority of the pope, in the sense of being God’s mouthpiece anyway. Other branches of Christianity have distinctly different organisations, and in many of these there is no one leader to speak for the entire church.
Plus, as far as I’m aware (and bear in mind this is coming from an atheist) although the catholic church has spoken on the subject of evolution and determined it compatible with catholic teaching, I don’t believe that the pope has ever done so from a position of papal authority. As a result the church has merely been speaking from its position as highly informed theologians.
(Wow. I never expected to be discussing Christian denominations on RPS)
Edit: Seems a few other people got there before me. But other branches of Christianity aren’t a new thing, the earliest split being the Great Schism, between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. (In 1054) And of course the later split to form the protestant churches, and the various other divisions that have happened since then. (Such as King Henry VIII deciding to try and get a slice of the Catholic church’s pie and a divorce into the bargain when he established the Church of England)
20/05/2009 at 22:03 Serondal says:
@Hidden I think they do that because British shows are generally kind of sedated and boring to Americans. I think they’d be better off if they just let us get used to it because British shows can be rather delightful once you get used to the pace. I love Keeping Up Apperances for example.
20/05/2009 at 22:07 Jeremy says:
Well, regarding the idea of rapture, it isn’t necessarily a clear cut “yea” or “nay” sort of idea. It is more of a “when” sort of debate more than anything else, unless you’re Roman catholic. Also, the Pope isn’t the spokesperson for all of Christianity, just a portion of it, the rest of us believe we don’t need a mediator to speak to God.
All that aside, the game does look to be a bit of a slog. It really is unfortunate that they use such blatant stereotypes in the game, because all that does is alienate gamers. I’m just kinda curious how they consider a game to be an effective evangelistic tool to break out of the box. It honestly looks like the last game I would ever want to play in the entire world, and now they’re making part 2? Yuck. My problem with the books is along the lines of what other’s have said, it is a fictional story, along the lines of the DaVinci Code, that people have misconstrued and turned into fact.
Also, in all fairness Tei, science shouldn’t need to be “believed” in, so until a certain theory is proven, I won’t take it as science or fact. I hold it to the same standard of all science.
20/05/2009 at 22:07 CryingTheAnnualKingo says:
I believe that, in the game, Rock and Roll was one of the the main weapons employed by the evil forces. Just like in the fifties. What a sad and strange point of view to have…
20/05/2009 at 22:09 Gap Gen says:
Is there such thing as militant Christianity? As in, if you’re militant, you aren’t a Christian.
20/05/2009 at 22:11 Gap Gen says:
Jeremy: Depends whether or not you view science as a methodology or a set of findings. I’d argue that the former is more accurate, and as such I’d argue that I believe in science (while being aware of its limitations).
20/05/2009 at 22:13 Bozzley says:
Something that’s always annoyed me – why the term “God-botherer”? Do you really think God is gonna see all the good souls pouring into Heaven and think “well, I preferred it when it was quieter and I wasn’t getting hassled so much”?
Back on topic – I’d been aware of the propensity for the weirder slice of American Christians to spout any old bullshit to justify and promote their faith, but I’m genuinely surprised they’d promote their game the same way. People tend to stick with what they know, I guess.
Also, slightly off topic – there’s been a few mentions through the years of what would make a B-game, in the same way there are B-movies. Would Left Behind (or Left Behind 2) qualify? Based on this write-up, they’re both shit, cheaply made, exploitative, but they also possess that thing that makes me want to play them to see just how bad they really are.
20/05/2009 at 22:17 Serondal says:
I thought it’d be a cool way to reach people with messages from the Old testemate to make a video game based on it that is brutally realistic (say like the Conan game) and follows the adventures of key people in the Old testmate as they waged war and tried to survive ect. I think it would both make an awesome game and also get people turned on to reading more about the bible without beating them over the head with any message. take it more from a historical game point of view, give the character’s motives without stating they were true or false and let the player decide to worry about it or not. I think it’d be awesome to lead armies and fighting battles ect as in the old testmate God often bade his people to invade certain areas they were promised to them ect.
Also could make a cool resource managment game where you’re noah building an Ark while everyone calls you crazy ;) Popcap games needs to do this one for it to be done right lol.
I wouldn’t compare these games to B-Movies for one reason. B-Movies are MADE that way on purpose. Sci-fi channel could make good movies (and they have every now and again, for example the Remake of Dune) But they choose to make a ton of campy B-movies for the purpose of being silly. Where as these games try and claim to be actually good and in reality are crap. Killing Floor is more like a b-game ;P
20/05/2009 at 22:17 apnea says:
There are [people with religious values] in the US.
That’s right, I just censored myself. That hammer thing is growing on me.
20/05/2009 at 22:19 apnea says:
Seconding the idea of an Old Testament game. Would be a positively bloody, hateful piece of work. Well, as positively bloody and hateful as some bloody and hateful thing can be.
Edit: sorry for the double post.
20/05/2009 at 22:21 Jeremy says:
Gap Gen: When you say methodology, are you really meaning to say methods? Methodology is more of a philosophical concept, rather than actual methods. I just want to confirm that before responding :)
20/05/2009 at 22:29 Serondal says:
The sad fact is if you really did make a video game based 100% on the Old testament ,which I am obviously incapable of spelling right most of the time, the game would probably be banned in Canada and giving an R or NC-17 rating in the US and other countries similiar ratings/banning. Would maybe be seen as hate speech or something with ancient Jewish people killing and slaughtering entire tribes of people just because God told them too and then taking a wack at the surviving males foreskin after all that and having at their women ect. Would be great cut scene after the Sodom gets pwned ect to have the father sleeping with his daughters in a cave because he got hammered drunk O.o Yah, great game in the making.
20/05/2009 at 22:30 Funky Badger says:
Tei: FYI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition
Cap Gen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templars
20/05/2009 at 22:33 Gap Gen says:
Yes, I meant a set of methods and practices (although Wikipedia does allow for one of the definitions of methodology to be a set of methods).
My point was basically that the findings of science are only worth anything because they were discovered in a rational, systematic fashion, and have been demonstrated to be true “beyond reasonable doubt”.
Perhaps religion should police itself as rigorously as the scientific community does. If a scientist is caught lying, their careers are over. Perhaps if a Christian promotes abuse or the harming of others, they should be more vociferously denounced as not being Christians at all by the religious community.
20/05/2009 at 22:35 Gap Gen says:
Funky Badger: Would you call their use of violence Christian, though? Bear in mind that Jesus’s response to violence is to turn the other cheek and all that.
20/05/2009 at 22:39 Serondal says:
The Templars were cast out by the Catholic church even, that shows you how non-christian they were. That’s like a drunk telling you that you’ve got a drinking problem :P
20/05/2009 at 22:40 Okami says:
@Gap Gen: There is a very good article in the current issue of Harper’s Magazine about the growing power of evangelical christians in the US Army. This article also includes the description of what has to be the most stupid and braindead military maneuvre in the history of mankind.
On the subject of scientific theories: They aren’t usually disbelieved until proven, but rather believed until unproven. ie: the theory of gravity will be in use until the first time an apple falls from a tree into space. Which would be pretty awesome.
20/05/2009 at 22:41 Mad Doc MacRae says:
I always thought the game was largely missing the point (even if you accept the books’ premise). As well as awful.
20/05/2009 at 22:42 Loki says:
Ummm, quick question who the in the name of Feniris is this supposed to convert? Seriously…
I mean if it was halfway decent I might think “Christian must have God on their side to program so awesomely!” But what the hell more likely to believe that I’m God by the (lacklustre) RTS elements of Spore than to be influenced in any way by this stuff…
Dear Craziests buy a decent marketing department before you try and evangelise again…
20/05/2009 at 22:44 Serondal says:
You could probably make a good game about the book series but making a RTS game based on it is a bad idea to begin with. an Adventure game would probably be best, or an mmorpg where ever one just sits arounds and gains levels for suffering ;P
@Above Post – At least buy a good developer. Here’s hoping they higher 3d realms to make the next one mwuahhahah. gives a new meaning to the term “development hell”
20/05/2009 at 22:52 Okami says:
I guess the game makes for a good argument against god. Surely any omnipotent creator of the universe worth his salt would have smiten the creators of such an atrocity with lightning bolts from heaven, wouldn’t he?
Since the folks who made the game are still alive and able to write incredibly random press releases, the existence of god is refuted beyond any doubt.
20/05/2009 at 22:57 Serondal says:
lmao @ Okami – Just because they didn’t explode in a ball of fire doesn’t mean he didn’t smite them. They didn’t make any money, lost tons of money if you are to believe them indeed.
But seriously God doesn’t smite people that don’t agree with him, any more. thats part of his new deal with man kind to control his anger and avoid blowing up the entire planet. Though to be honest people of that day and time deserved it when they got it. LA and Las Vegas and San Fran, Amsterdamn ect are nothing compared to how bad Sodom was.
20/05/2009 at 22:57 Bozzley says:
Okami – it might make a case for a God with a cracking sense of humour.
20/05/2009 at 23:00 Novotny says:
Oh don’t start me Walker! Any fighting over boundaries, possessions etc annoys me terribly, but I would FUCKING GO TO WAR to defend evolution or science in general. Yeah. Would totally defend it.
20/05/2009 at 23:05 Serondal says:
Novotny = worlds first militant scientist? Also a good idea for a game ;)
I have no problem with Micro evolution but don’t believe in macro-evolution, actually my views line up rather nice with that screen shot up above. But I don’t think science should be abolished or anything like that, it serves a very good purpose and I think it should exist.
Some scientist believe in God, based on their findings, other don’t believe in God what so ever based on their findings, and still others are unsure (based on a survery I saw on Bbc.com a few months back ) Just like us they each have diffrent ideas about what is true or what is not true. That is great to me, I think people should have freedom to choose how they believe and what they believe in. So I to would fight for your right to have your science and tell me about it whenever you feel like it mate ;) Would go to F@#$@# war for it right next to you. Freedom to believe as you wish is a core of America after all and many other countries.
20/05/2009 at 23:06 cjlr says:
@Serondal: Old Testament: the Video Game, banned in Canada? Since when is anything banned in Canada? I can see a game about collecting philistine foreskins being a really hard sell, but if it got made, you’d still be able to buy it.
@James G: Just to be really pedantic, I’ll point out that Christians schisms are as old as Christianity.
There were dogmatic differences before, but the first official breaks were back at Nikaia and Ephesus. Arianism and Meletians, which I think don’t exist anymore, and the Assyrian and Oriental Orthodoxy, which do; also, obviously, the Catholic church. Hilariously enough most of the arguments were originated by disagreement over translations.
20/05/2009 at 23:08 Novotny says:
Nice post Serondal. I’m actually expecting my best mate, who is a commited christian, to call at any moment and don’t want this discussion on screen! Mostly because I respect him and do not wish to upset him.
20/05/2009 at 23:19 Serondal says:
I take back my comment on Canada, what I meant to say is the game would be in the section with x-rated material. (I could be wrong but I believe that is how Canada treated Postal 2) because it would be so graphic.
BTW they didn’t collect the the foreskins so much as remove them so that the new members of their tribe would sit right with God ;) So in other words it would just be a mini-game you play every time you add new male members to your group? Not sure how that’d work out.
20/05/2009 at 23:22 jonfitt says:
Pfeh! I prefer my games about more realistic topics like Space Marines or Kobolds.
20/05/2009 at 23:27 Serondal says:
This thread is generating all kinds of good ideas! Space Marine Kobolds! They’d be just as good as Space Marine Murlock they gave out as a WoW gift.
(btw I’m posting so much because I’m literally 100% out of other things to do. Forgive me if I wax verbose or post to much. Methinks enough has been said by me, here in, so I will migrates to parts other)
20/05/2009 at 23:30 Jad says:
I would just like to fourth (fifth?) Fred Clark’s brilliant deconstruction of the Left Behind series that NNeko linked to above: http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/index.html. He’s a devout evangelical who won a Atheist Blogger of the Year award, which should tell you something about his even-handedness and clear-thinking-ness.
Also, a warning about judging everybody in a group from their loudest, ugliest members: there are many people who believe that all videogamers are antisocial teenagers with foul mouths and violent tendencies. There may be a frighteningly large number of gamers like that, and they are loud and prominent, but we know that there are many more gamers who have friends and jobs and spouses and are in every way unlike the stereotype. We dislike being lumped into the same group as the crazy kids just as much as quiet, mainstream Christians like getting lumped in with the crazy fundies.
20/05/2009 at 23:35 Larington says:
Reading about the emergence of Lutheranism was eye openning for me. It just goes to show how dangerous it can be to believe something and not leave just a little room for doubt. The idea that evidence of the Earth being older than 6000 years is just a ‘test of faith’ is one of the many extremist views that cause me great concern.
Obviously though, we should be wary of judging. I’ve become rather fond of the phrase “When you become obsessed with the enemy, you become the enemy” and as such I try to stay distant from thinking about such things too much.
For example, you have the X360 and PS3 fanboys who are so devout and fanatical in their belief that their system is better (Err, PC as well) that their very words alienate people who might otherwise have listened to opinions about why system x is better than system p and in so doing they become their own worst enemy.
20/05/2009 at 23:35 Andrew Dunn says:
The Slacktivist Left Behind bloggings are fantastic. Fred’s currently working his way through Tribulation Force, the second book in the series, and his cutting dissection of every page is beautiful and fascinating and often laugh-out-loud funny.
20/05/2009 at 23:41 ZIGS says:
But is it worse than Stalin VS Martians?
20/05/2009 at 23:44 Serondal says:
@Zigs YES! MUCH WORSE. Stalin VS Martians is PERFECT example of a B-game in that it knows it is silly, it knows it is a bad RTS but can be a funny game ect. Where as this game and it’s designers actaully think it is good.
20/05/2009 at 23:46 Dead Fish says:
Weird all around…
Does Gamespot really advertise on their billboards? Maybe you meant Gamestop.
20/05/2009 at 23:48 Heliocentric says:
I love how they slag off evolution by leaning on the concept of species, which is itself an invention of scientist. Pop quiz, species don’t exist you can cross breed and naturally and manually redistribute genetics across “species”. Sure, if you say, one day the squirrel became a man it seems stupid, but one day a carbon organism started standing on two legs and using tools? Not so crazy.
nb. If squirrels start using tools we are all fucked, they are natures ninja.
20/05/2009 at 23:51 Serondal says:
Species do exist , you can’t cross bread a cow and a dog for example. You cant cross bread humans and apes which are suposedly evolved from the same species however you CAN cross bread a dog and a wolf which are evolved from the same species so hrm . . . makes you think eh? Species is a creation of science yes, to help organize all the vastly diffrent kinds of creatures on our planet, but in a very real way the are also real in that creatures from diffrent species can mate, but can not produce dababies
My old room mate used to swear that you could cross bread cats and rabbits (cabbits) and that’d she had seen one with her own eyes but all evidence points to this being false as well as sad as that may be : (
I honestly can’t say if marco-evolution is true or not, I’m just saying I’m going to need a LOT more evidence before I believe it one way or another. I don’t think it is so far fetched for God to have created the Earth and made the species that live upon it capable of adapting to changing conditions in their enviroment, that is a bit of foresight.
20/05/2009 at 23:54 malkav11 says:
I’m struggling to think of a single self-proclaimed Christian game which has ever been any good.
20/05/2009 at 23:55 jalf says:
However there are cases of different species being able to breed. And of course, what’s the situation if species A can crossbreed with B, but not C, and C too can breed with B? How many species do we have then?
The concept of species (as defined by who can breed with who) is a gross simplification. The concept of species is, as Heliocentric said, invented by scientists.
20/05/2009 at 23:56 Noc says:
Actually, the threshold for what counts as a separate species is what cannot crosspbreed and produce viable offspring. For instance, you can mix Horses and Donkeys and get Mules, but Mules are always sterile.
There are actually very good scientific reasons for this. Essentially, the chromosome sets become different enough that they don’t match up properly; this is especially apparent when different species have different numbers of chromosomes. Sometimes they’re close enough that you can make something by sticking the two together, but the sets will still be different enough that subsequent meiosis won’t actually produce anything workable.
. . . so yes. The concept of “species” was invented by scientists. But it was invented by scientists to describe something they observed. Like, you know, every other term that’s been invented by scientists, like “gravity” and “electricity” and “thermodynamics.”
Heliocentric, you are entirely wrong. Sorry.
(Wikipedia explains it here.)
21/05/2009 at 00:00 Heliocentric says:
I kinda expected this reaction. Allow me to explain. I did not say all organics can breed with all organics. Nor did i suggest that all genetic material was suitable for modification with all other genetic material. What i said was that the distinctions of species are arbitry.
Evolved from the same species? What about the rna transcription virus which is inherent to our survival and how it is capable of exchanging genetic material with other virii?
Don’t be dense, i didn’t say if a dog fucks a cow you get a half dog/cow, but when you can use bacteria to produce human hormones, or antibiotics drawn from fungus. When humans can mix these genetic materials together to breed dogs that glow in the dark? I assure you that infinite time and entropy can do anything man can.
21/05/2009 at 00:00 Serondal says:
My sister is a crazy Christian and when I used to go stay at her house whilst my parents were away on vacations ect I’d be forced to go to pentacostal church and be exposed to all kinds of alternate stuff like christian radio, christian Tv ect. Her kids had this on the NES http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_(video_game) and I actually enjoyed it ^_^ Going around “killing” things with glowing Ws. The fact is though the game was just a copy of another popular NES game with bible tones slapped onto it so really it doesn’t count in my book.
I’m not saying you were saying that Heli, I’m just saying if we so closely related to Apes why is it we can not cross bread? Like said about horses and donkies can, (Though they produce sterile off spring) and wolves and dogs can. From the charts I’ve seen Humans and Chimps and Gorillas ect suposedly share the same direct ancestor (Which they can’t find fossils of for some reason?) We should be able to at least produce some sterile children if this be true. And don’t for a SECOND imply that no one has ever had sex with a chimp :P Also I’m not saying you’re wrong. I don’t have enough info to really argue that point with you I’m just saying it seems strange to me to believe with what little evidence we have that this is the case.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/66/BibleBuffetBoxart.jpg
LMAO!
21/05/2009 at 00:11 jalf says:
@Noc: Nop, that is no longer the common definition of species, because it doesn’t work. The real world isn’t so neat. I understand the genetics, but remember that the genetics are pretty complicated. Just because A and C are too different to crossbreed doesn’t mean that there doesn’t exist a B which is close enough to both A and C to be able to crossbreed with them.
And of course, horses and donkeys can breed. The result is *usually* but not *always* sterile, yes, but they can breed and have offspring. And of course, it falls completely apart on organisms that don’t reproduce sexually, or in the many cases where scientists simply don’t *know* if interbreeding is possible (did anyone ever try mating a parrot with a penguin? If not, how can we know they can’t breed?) Which is why scientists no longer agree on this simple definition of “species”. You may find the wikipedia page on the subject interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem
Apart from that, it’s funny that the distinction between “micro” and “macro”-evolution only exists among creationists. The problem with this distinction is that they’re unable to suggest anything that could prevent microevolution from becoming macro-evolution. Even the craziest of them is unable to come up with anything that could enforce these borders between species, and allow evolution *within* a species, but somehow neutralize any mutation that’d take the individual “outside” the species. Even if nature had a concept of “species”, which mechanism should prevent mutations from deviating from the parent species?
21/05/2009 at 00:13 James G says:
@Noc
But Mule’s aren’t entirely sterile, just near as damnit. However there have actually been cases of mules giving birth. (Although admittedly I’m not aware of any cases of two mules giving rise to an offspring)
With plants, the situation is even more confusing, as those things are able to cross-breed like the clappers, constantly crossing defined species boundaries.
Furthermore we have ring species, such as varieties of seagulls. In these cases you have a band circling the earth, a continuous population able to interbreed. However, where the two ends of this ring meet, you get two distinctive ‘species’ of gull which are unable to interbreed.
The idea of a species as a scientific concept isn’t entirely without merit it is true, but it is still a concept with some fundamental woolliness, and not a set of strictly defined boundaries.
(All this without even considering lateral gene transfer, something that is positively promiscuous in the bacteria.)
21/05/2009 at 00:13 John Walker says:
Cheers Dead Fish – typo. Fixed now.
Bozzley – I first heard the term “God-botherer” when listening to the Mark Radcliffe on Radio 1 in the mid 90s. There used to be this Christian show presented by Simon Mayo on Bank Holiday Monday evenings called The Big Holy 1FM (the past is weird), and on the Thursday before it Radcliffe would say, “We’re not here on Monday ‘cos the God-botherers are in.” And I fell in love with it.
Jad – I hope that in making it clear I’m Crispy I go some way to assuring people that this article isn’t an attack on Christianity, or Christians in general. Just the loonies.
Serondal, and everyone else – I’m not sure RPS is the place for a debate over evolution. I really don’t want this thread to become that, and will edit future posts to prevent it happening. (However, I urge everyone in the universe to watch PBS’s Judgment Day: Intelligent Design On Trial.) However, please carry on the discussion on the forum: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forum/
21/05/2009 at 00:14 cjlr says:
Of course species are a human construct. It’s a word we made up. That’s all we’ve got, though, and it seems to describe the world very well, so we might as well run with it! Quote-unquote “real” populations resemble a spectrum more than anything. We’ve shown this experimentally. Separate a population (eg, fruit flies) into several environments and expose them to different pressures; eventually you have some populations that cannot interbreed and some that can, making for a really fuzzy speciation line.
@Serondal, macroevolution is the unavoidable conclusion of the fossil record. We have species today which did not exist in the past. We have species in the past which no longer exist today. At some point one led to the other.
Dogs can interbreed with wolves because they are more closely related than humans and, say, chimpanzees. Dogs and wolves have a common ancestor only a couple ten thousand years ago; humans and chimpanzees have a common ancestor four million years ago. As someone mentioned chimps have 48 chromosomes; humans have 46, making a hybrid impossible.
21/05/2009 at 00:15 Helm says:
About the between-section proselytizing texts: this doesn’t mean this game is intended for use by seculars or even people on the fence about all this god business. The developers don’t expect to convince anyone that evolution is a lie through this videogame.
This is meant primarily for internal consumption. It’s the software equivalent of god rock. It exists so that children from Christian families that like videogames can be made to play Christian games so that they’re completely insulated from contrasting opinion on teleological and ethical issues.
21/05/2009 at 00:15 Noc says:
@Heliocentric: A couple things.
Both hormones and antibiotics are chemicals. They don’t contain genetic code, and they aren’t alive. The fact that the cells of multiple organisms often use the same hormones is no more indicative of a lack of genetic barriers than the fact that multiple organisms make use of oxygen. Wikipedia on Hormones.
Antibiotics are nothing but “something that kills bacteria.” They don’t have anything to do with genetic codes either. They don’t interact with the human body at all, actually; they just kill bacteria inside it. They are basically rather specific sorts of poison. Read about them here.
And virii? Well, uh . . . if your point is “Certain things that are designed to manipulate DNA on a chemical level can . . . manipulate DNA on a chemical level despite the contents of that DNA varying across species,” that doesn’t really support your assertion that “special boundaries are meaningless and arbitrary” any more than hormones or antibiotics do.
. . .
So. Can cross species fertilization happen? Yes. Can it produce consistently viable offspring? No. If it does produce consistently viable offspring, does this mean that the concept of “species” is meaningless? No, it means that it, like every classification system ever, is inexact and needs to be adjusted to newly available evidence.
21/05/2009 at 00:17 John Walker says:
Those two snuck in. No more.
21/05/2009 at 00:21 Serondal says:
Sorry didn’t see that post saying no more, I respect that mate ;)
21/05/2009 at 00:22 John Walker says:
Helm – that’s the interesting thing about the game. It does genuinely seem to see itself as an evangelistic tool. (Do you own “evangelistic tool” joke here.) When I reviewed it I assumed it was made by fundies, for fundies. But as you play, increasingly it becomes clear that the screens of text, with links to their site to teach you more (and by teach, they mean have you make a prayer of commitment), are intended to twist the arm of the non-believer.
I think this is an arrogance of the loonies. You buy it from your church for your kids, and then they’ll say to their hellbound buddies, “Hey, come over and play this neat new videogame I’ve got!” And then they’ll all be Christians by teatime.
Serondal – no problem at all. I think it’s a good off topic debate for the forum, so long as everyone remains respectful, but I think it’s a bit too far off the point of this post.
21/05/2009 at 00:29 Serondal says:
@John Walker – I think this is the worst possible way to go about changing anyones mind on anything at all. Screaming at someone, telling them they’re going to hell, beating them over the head with something they don’t believe in, probably won’t work. I’m sure for some part of the population that kind of thing does work but at some point in time I’m sure most of these people are already beaten into believe one thing or another and they’re not really worth fighting over. ( I say that but really everyone is worth fighting over ;) )
Any God that wants you to beleive in him should also NOT want you to be forced to believe in Him because really when you’re forced to do something you’re heart is not totally in it and that is a requirment for this sort of thing. I think these people do more to hurt Christianity than to help it and it’s been this way for a long time :( this is just a new example.
(not going to argue about the whole species / evolution deal any more. I’m not saying anyone is right or wrong, certainly not saying I’m right or wrong. Everyone is allowed their opinion and I am open minded. If the convo carries over to the forum you won’t see me there because I’m not registered and can’t register from work :P )
21/05/2009 at 00:32 Jad says:
@John Walker: No no, that was perfectly clear. I did not mean that comment in regards to you, sir — it just seemed that the thread was heading off into ignorant “this just proves that all Christians are crazy lololol” that I’ve seen too many times. And, it turns out that I was wrong, and instead the thread turned into a discussion of the definition of species.
Anyway, I have no real videogame-related comments to make here, so I’ll stop now.
21/05/2009 at 00:32 Gap Gen says:
I wonder whether it would be a good thing to see more games espouse a particular viewpoint. There have been a few games supporting international peace and development, which I think is a worthwhile cause to promote.
“People of other faiths could play it and not know it’s Christian.” – I’m never sure about this sort of thing. Maybe he genuinely can’t see the point of view of non-Christians, and can’t see that they don’t view the Bible as an authority? Maybe he is lying? If that is the case, then that’s pretty unchristian. I’m not trying to play “gotcha”, but I think that being honest and open is a virtue that everyone should have, whether or not they believe dishonesty isn’t sanctioned by a deity.
21/05/2009 at 00:37 solipsistnation says:
So, there’s a whole world of Christian media out there, and it appears to adhere to entirely different definitions of “quality” than mainstream media, based more on the message and the Christianity of the media. It’s very strange, because, for example, Petra is bland at best (and unlistenable crap at worst) to your standard mainstream music fan, but to a Christian music listener it’s just fine. They’ll listen to all the Petra albums because it’s Christian music and thus acceptable, while anything else (The Rolling Stones! My Bloody Valentine! AC/DC! Sonic Youth! Nirvana!) is no good because it’s secular.
I think this applies to video games as well– Half-Life 2 might be a great game, but it’s secular and thus doesn’t exist in the Christian media continuum. Since the pinnacles of game design (Portal, Civilization, etc) aren’t in the list, “Left Behind: Tribulation Force” is the de facto best game available.
21/05/2009 at 00:37 OJ 287 says:
This game is basically Syndicate but with cardigans instead of trenchcoats. The Holy Persuadatron.
BTW I think Wayne Rooney is at least half gorilla.
21/05/2009 at 00:44 Serondal says:
@solipsistnation – you’re lumping like a huge population of the world into one bag when you say stuff like that. I relaize you may be joking to make a point about how bad the game itself is (And it is bad bad bad)
I can’t speak for ALL Christians I can only speak for myself and people I personally know but just cause a band isn’t a Christian band doesn’t mean I won’t listen to it. If a bad is clearly Satanic and what not I will avoid it but it has to go pretty far out there ( l listen to and love Slip Knot for example)
I would honestly love to see a good dev come along and make good Christian games but even if that were the case and I could have all the Christian games I could ever play I’d still buy secular ones too.
There is a game where you try to bring peace in Israel that came out semi-recently that is suposedly not all that bad, would like to see a trend of more peaceful games. Still I’ll play pretty much any game where your character is a good guy and even played a few where you’re the bad guy.
21/05/2009 at 01:10 John Walker says:
Thief! Thief’s a peaceful game! It has trouble with the stealing commandment, admittedly. But it nips killing in the bud.
solipsistnation – I think you’re right. I’ve met people who exist in such bubbles, who live by a confusion of the “in the world, not of the world” mantra, where they forget the first half, and it pains me to see people settling for such mediocrity. I’m never sure how to behave around such people – I feel like I’m going to break them by speaking out loud. And I ALWAYS want to show them Brass Eye, but that’s because I’m horrid.
The very notion of such a thing as a “Christian game” being desirable or necessary seems likely to always be so niche as to never produce anything worthwhile. Especially not when the intentions seem to inevitably be to a) be pious or b) be evangelical. But perhaps I am biased by the unfailing awfulness of every example so far. I can imagine being delighted if someone wrote a poignant, thoughtful, challenging game on Christian themes.
21/05/2009 at 01:13 solipsistnation says:
@Serondal: I grew up in a small town with a couple of families that didn’t let their kids listen to secular music or play D&D and so on. A whole side of my family is pretty Fundamentalist Christian. I have an uncle who is a Fundamentalist Christian minister. His kids, when they came over to visit us, would basically hide upstairs and read my comic books for HOURS because they never got to see anything like that at home.
I realize this doesn’t describe ALL Christians– I’ve also had friends who were devoutly Christian but also went to punk shows and so on. The target of the Christian Media I’m talking about isn’t Catholics or Generic Protestants or Russian Orthodox or whatever, though– it’s those Fundamentalist Christians who have that very narrow mindset and don’t want to expose themselves or their children to anything that doesn’t support their own version of Christianity.
You can go into any city in the US and find Christian bookstores that sell books, music, role-playing games(!), and video games targeted at this subset of Christianity. Left Behind is only the tip of this particular iceberg.
21/05/2009 at 01:21 solipsistnation says:
@John Walker: I went to that side of my family’s yearly reunion last year. I smiled and nodded a lot and tried to avoid, well, anything but sort of general “Oh, and how IS Aunt Wossname these days?” conversation. Conveniently, nobody ever asks if I’ve read any good books recently, or heard any good music, or seen any good movies, or played any video games or whatever… It’s a very odd culture to visit, especially since I tend to hang out with uber-liberal geeks with a voracious appetite for basically any media.
I think, that even as a big fat naughty heathen atheist commie, I’d also like to see a GOOD game on Christian themes, just because I think it would be interesting if done well. It’s a rich mythology (if you want to be nerdy about it), with a lot to offer. I’ve enjoyed reading Fred Clark’s posts, and they’ve even led me to go off and read some of what he’s talking about in the Bible. (And I didn’t catch on fire!)
I suppose Painkiller doesn’t count.
21/05/2009 at 01:23 solipsistnation says:
A pause for googling: Holy cow, I’d never run into “Brass Eye” before. I must view this.
21/05/2009 at 01:26 Novotny says:
So, er – we’ve got squirrel ninjas to conbat now? AS WELL?
21/05/2009 at 01:27 Novotny says:
^^JUST SEEN COMMENT ABOVE.
You’ve never seen Brass Eye?
omg what sort of people am i talking with
21/05/2009 at 01:33 solipsistnation says:
@Novotny: Americans!
HOLY CRAP RUN
(Considering the ratio of BBC TV to American TV I’ve seen in my life, I’m surprised I hadn’t run into it before.)
21/05/2009 at 01:57 John Walker says:
solipsistnation – it’s not the sort of think I can imagine, um, any US network showing. HBO/Showtime I guess. But it was a bit of a one-off in UK terms too, back when Channel 4 showed something other than Big Brother or documentaries about people shagging animals. Worth getting the DVD, definitely.
21/05/2009 at 02:05 Markoff Chaney says:
Feel free to edit judiciously or delete outright. ;)
Just as the label Homo Sapien denotes a certain string of nucleotides strung together in a certain pattern (not wholly unlike the patterns of virtually every other oxygen consuming symbiote on this ball hurtling through space time) so too does the label Christian denotes a follower of Christ.
I would go into more connotations, but a few of my comments get deleted when I stray too far into that territory. I could express my outrage at the patent, verifiable falsehoods presented to consumers of this game, but then, should I remove that mote from their eye, I would have to remove veritable timbers from the eyes of virtually all forms of media consumed by these Homo Sapiens these days, especially all media owned by the big 6.
I can’t think of much worse in this world in my eyes than a person or group thereof who ignores facts and reality in order to push an agenda where they have a vested interest in maintaining control of minds. Two thousand years of 10 percent gross is a hard racket to give up though… All the more’s the pity since information can move more freely now and the game can be more clearly seen.
21/05/2009 at 02:13 Kieron Gillen says:
solipsistnation: For God’s sake, get you to a Brass Eye. Maybe do the Day Today before it. Between them they’re probably the biggest single influence on RPS, I fear.
KG
21/05/2009 at 02:14 Blast Hardcheese says:
[Terry Jones' Medieval Lives]
http://www.youtube.com/show?p=s-Gqsjg9y-8
21/05/2009 at 02:18 solipsistnation says:
Okay! I see the Brass Eye DVD is only 6 pounds on amazon.co.uk, too. With the current exchange rate, that means you will actually be paying ME to watch it! YAY!
(Hm, better check my current DVD drive can play region 2 DVDs… Unsurprisingly, I guess, I have some with which to test it.)
Is “Nathan Barley” any good? Yes, I’ve read TVGoHome…
21/05/2009 at 02:54 Thants says:
Brass Eye really is fantastic. It’s a shame there’s not more of it, but i guess there’s something to be said for not beating it into the ground. It caused be to seek out Jam though, which I’m still trying to recover from.
21/05/2009 at 03:00 Helm says:
I second (or third or better) the notion that any game that strives to tackle issues of faith, be it from a secular or theist angle, should be worth extra consideration. It’s all the more disappointing that the few examples of Christian gaming (bible stories for the NES? Zoo Race?) we have as so extremely bad whereas there’s Christian literature, philosophy or music of such high merit. I think the key aspect here is that the medium is not yet taken seriously enough to be employed in any other capacity as just reinforcement of the usual brainwashing or limp propaganda.
21/05/2009 at 03:02 ascagnel says:
@solipsistnation: Your comment on having a good “Christian” game made me smile. Going personal: I’m a somewhat-devout Roman Catholic in a very liberal part of the US (right outside New York City, to be specific) that tends to be less religious and more educated (NOTE: those two aren’t mutually exclusive — the Boston area is more educated and more religious, for example), and a game that treats the subject matter properly would sell like hotcakes. What drags me down is Left Behind’s attitude toward women — those design decisions had to be intentional, but do fit into the evangelical lifestyle.
The modern setting for a religious-based RTMG (real-time management game) is pretty beefy too — world events and the views of individuals could have an effect on gameplay outside of what you do (i.e.: a terrorist attack driving some towards fundamentalist faith and others away from it) while still largely keeping the Left Behind model of “convert before kill.”
Summing up: it’s a good concept that would be an awesome game in the hands of a good RTS developer, like Blizzard or Relic, and will be incredibly controversial.
21/05/2009 at 03:28 Digit says:
Disclaimer of interest too: I’m a Christian.
With that said, I’m really not sure people should make Christian games and the only reason I say that is because they just can’t STOP themselves, from getting Christianity confused with several very different and specific beliefs or views that often have nothing to do with Christianity. For example, using John’s evolution screenshot, saying that you are Christian does not automatically mean you believe that. So stop making it seem like it does!
It’s all very confusing. Why not instead, take a small section of influence from the Bible about something, like lets say an eternal conflict between Heaven and Hell and go and make Diablo! I’m not saying Diablo has Christian roots or anything, I’m just saying the potential to take something that is very well known, and a very interesting setting, and create gameplay from it is huge!
That’s a great idea, try to portray some events, and one reason I say this is because wrapping up the history of the Bible, isn’t that interesting. It’s interesting academically, and there are some pretty action-packed books, such as Exodus (Hello Prince of Egypt you animated masterpiece you!), but really it’s often like making a game about life in ancient times, or making a game about the history of the Zulu people or something like that. I don’t go read my Bible for fun, I read it for reflection, research and contemplation. Just like I don’t play games for research, reflection and contemplation (unless I guess I am making a game) I do it for entertainment.
There will be cool bits, but focus on them, and don’t get all pedantic about the details, if people care that much about the details, I’m sure they will go read the Bible, chances are though they just want to kick back and have some fun as they play games for entertainment, and doing so I would think it’s a huge win if you can make a Christian game that is accepted on merits like gameplay, style and some cool features -by everyone-, rather than accepted on it’s completeness and theological accuracy by a tiny, tiny few.
Boggles my tiny, tiny mind. :’(
21/05/2009 at 04:04 hitnrun says:
You know, I’m not sure if it’s that Christianity or even religiosity can’t possibly work as a theme (assuming there’s an interested audience) so much as that every person who’s inspired to attempt the feat seems to put “1) Rebut evolution, 2) demonize post-colonial science, and 3) emphasize tangential mythology elements from the most controversial book shoehorned late into the back of the Bible” at the top of their “List of Most Important Things to Include.”
Maybe it would work better if they tried something else? Like, I don’t know, maybe the rest of the religion? I heard that Jesus guy had a few opinions and stories he used to tell that might make for an interesting background topic or two.
Mandatory Disclaimer: Christian, urban northeast United States.
21/05/2009 at 04:05 TCM says:
Christian Fundamentalist, Biblical Literalist, myself.
(we are not all insane guys)
21/05/2009 at 04:22 Chemix says:
Here Here Digit, we Christians will smite thine unbelieving rebel scum with their own technological terrors. That said, everything after the comma was sarcastic and intended as humor, if it can not be read clearly.
I believe in God, and to a further extent, Jesus, and to an even further extent, creationism. I took an objective look at evolution versus creationism, the former being my original belief, and found that the seven day solution made more sense, to me. Getting that out of the way
Left Behind is christian fiction that people take way too seriously, beyond the whole Da Vinci code debocal serious. Pastor Hagae is the main televangelist behind this marketing push/ revelations fearmongering super serious attitude by preaching that the Left Behind series is an accurate portrayal of the book of Revelations, which is the near straight to text from dream dictation of a Christian living in the time of Nero, which was a bad time for anyone that Nero felt like using for tiki torches in his palace garden, living tiki torches. That man was a pyro if there ever was one… well, since Prometheus, metaphorically.
In short, Left Behind is a political fiction novel with spiritual elements and biblical references, which then shifts to action and then survival horror before turning into a war story about Armageddon. Despite so much potential, it’s very flat with character development that happens in the course of up to four pages and villains that are highly predictable and borrow a lot from other stories. If it wasn’t for Growing Pains’ Kirk Cameron, the movie would have been a flop, rather than a direct to video televangelist phenomenon, okay, so they could probably sell it with another actor, but when they went with Mr. T for Tribulation Force……………….
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21/05/2009 at 04:32 TCM says:
Left Behind books are okay. Nothing special when compared to other apocalyptic works, and it borrows way too heavily from the book of Revelation itself. (It’d be more fun to read if I didn’t always know what was going to happen, and I didn’t feel like I was rereading Revelation [incidentally, one of my favorite books of the Bible, if only because I enjoy working out which bits are symbolism and metaphor and which bits are literal] every few seconds)
21/05/2009 at 05:00 menki says:
The closest thing to a decent Christian game I’ve seen is . But it’s less about modern Christianity, and more about burning witches and stopping those nasty Templars from doing evil stuff. It’s also fairly awesome.
21/05/2009 at 05:00 menki says:
Sorry, html fail. Should say Darklands.
21/05/2009 at 05:33 Novotny says:
I suggest we all just go and listen to Peter Cook and Dudley Moore for a few hours. That’ll sort it
21/05/2009 at 05:37 Jeremy says:
Gap Gen, I missed all the exciting conversations, so I guess I’ll have to just sit and wonder what could’ve been…
On topic for the game, I think it is just about ridiculous to try and evangelize through a video game, just as ludicrous for any faith, not just Christianity. This could be said of any particular sort of viewpoint, whether it be religious, scientific or political. That being said, I am all for interesting plots based on religious, scientific or political ideas. They create the most interesting dramas. Ideally, if any game is going to be made based on anything from the Bible, I think a historical portrayal of it is going to be the best way to go about. Whatever you might believe, historically speaking, the Bible is a very interesting read.
Also, just as an aside, there is a common misconception that Christians set aside science for faith, but that is just not true. If God created everything, then obviously he’s the perfect scientist :) That being said, I am very careful about anything, scientific or spiritual, that claims to be “the new great discovery”. I don’t think anyone should blindly accept anything, spiritually or scientifically. Test everything and ask questions.
@Chemix, I totally forgot that Mr. T was in one of those movies, classic!
21/05/2009 at 05:37 Nalano says:
There was a question a while ago in this thread that asked if there was such a thing as a militant Christian, in the sense that Christianity as a faith is pacifist.
I contend that if you declare that all violent Christians aren’t Christian by definition (and that thus the pogroms and wars started by and in the name of Christianity are the work of overzealous ex-Christians) then you define the term ‘Christian’ out of any meaningful existence.
ie: The Christianity you know (the all-loving kind) quite simply isn’t known by the world, who only had to deal with the vengeful, spiteful kind.
21/05/2009 at 05:42 Novotny says:
I’m going to crack another beer and maybe create something else to go with it. Granted, it may be 5:40 in the morning in the happy UK, but this has potential to be the best thread ever meted out to cyber-space. In the last 6000 years.
21/05/2009 at 05:52 Jeremy says:
@Nalano, only in spiritual matters do the mistakes of humanity become written upon the ideology. To call the Crusades (which I’m assuming you’re referring in part) anything other than a political power play is simply incorrect. The first crusade was a response to a call for help against Muslim expansion, and it was twisted into a “religious” war. Sometimes men just need a reason to do evil, but that says more about human nature than religion.
21/05/2009 at 05:53 TCM says:
@Nalano:
That’s simply not true, by anybody’s definition. If it is true, you could say the same of any religion, belief, or opinion.
Anyhow, the majority of large-scale Christian ‘atrocities’, such as the Crusades, Inquisitions, etc. were committed some time ago by the bloated and corrupt (to this day) Catholic Church. Which, despite what they believe, is not the be-all end-all of Christianity. (I prefer to ignore Catholic doctrine entirely, despite canonizing the books of the Bible, it relies entirely too much on acrophyca.) While small-scale injustices and prejudices are perpetrated daily, again, the same could be said of any religion, belief, or point of view.
(Interesting sidenote: Agnosticism is probably the only spiritual state that could not be defined as a religion.)
21/05/2009 at 05:56 Novotny says:
Oh this is going wonderfully. I’m taking bets on Godwin’s law btw
21/05/2009 at 06:00 TCM says:
@Novotny:
YOUR MOTHER’S A HITLER
21/05/2009 at 06:14 Novotny says:
In every street-fight, every time, some silly git wants to watch too closely and ends up getting smacked in the mouth.
You may have my tooth out, TCM, but I’ll push you back into the main brawl and continue to laugh my tits off
21/05/2009 at 06:17 Digit says:
I can’t help but think a great way to do this would be to have what actually has happened, hidden from the player. In that, boom, 1 in 3 people or 3 in 5 or whatever, have just disappeared. What the hell has just happened? A little like Cloverfield where initially everyone has no idea what is going on, there are just some hints at the cause. So then you get to see human nature play out against itself, a little bit like they did in The Mist (based off of the Stephen King book). The movie was certainly received very differently depending on who you ask, but the one thing I did like, was how all the people holed up together with an ‘unknown’ outside, begin playing off of each other.
Oh God! It could almost be like Syndicate Wars with different factions, where one is trying to control the information, and use it to their gain, and you are instead trying to reveal the truth and that will lead you to the outcome at the end of the game.
Quick, lets ship this idea! :D
21/05/2009 at 06:22 Jeremy says:
Shipped.
21/05/2009 at 06:23 Novotny says:
Digit: You should work in government matey. You’ll do very well!
21/05/2009 at 06:24 Muzman says:
I was going to get all thingy about the evolution bit (to wit: anyone who accepts micro evolution then denies macro evolution, then uses dog breeds as an example of micro evolution, then suggests that’s all there is to macro evolution = Fail Biology Forever! Do not pass go…!). But then I got to the bit where the game is mostly about going around doing the Agent Smith on people so they become part of your cardigan wearing zerg army, and I had to lie on the floor for some minutes.
They must have had the same ingenious intern/saboteur who came up with the recent ‘Teabagging’ right-wing protest campaign.
21/05/2009 at 06:27 Novotny says:
Are we protesting tea-bagging or the right-wing? I’m quite fine with one of them
21/05/2009 at 06:28 Digit says:
@Novotny:
Ah alas, I’m actually a game designer by day. Never had any interest in politics and such – which is probably good! :p
21/05/2009 at 06:33 Novotny says:
I just tried to google ‘An interest in politics should preclude any candidate from office’ and totally failed. Who said that?
21/05/2009 at 06:35 TCM says:
@Muzman:
‘Cardigan wearing zerg army’ is the best phrase I’ve seen since I watched ‘Meet the Spy’.
(Also, that intern/saboteur was probably the same guy who hired Colbert for that Bush roast. I dunno whether to applaud, facepalm, or stare open mouthed in the general direction of the leadership of my political party of choice)
21/05/2009 at 06:38 Digit says:
Isn’t that because Google was down? :p
21/05/2009 at 06:45 Novotny says:
this is weird now. I just watched that Colbert video about 20 minutes ago due to a seemingly unrelated link. Am a fan of the Daily Show, but am also loving mad coincidences. OR MAYBE
21/05/2009 at 07:07 Muzman says:
TCM: Cheers. May it tide you over until the next TF2 video/amusing t-shirt you happen upon.
More on Teabagging for the intrigued (fairly safe for work, unless you under under pun restrictions): Here and Here too (keep watching for the segment after as well, Brits)
21/05/2009 at 07:38 dalig varg says:
if god is all powerful can he make a rock even he cant lift?
21/05/2009 at 07:59 bigredrock says:
@ Okami:
I’m not sure if you were linking to a particular post on FSTDT, but for info the main site has now moved to:
http://www.fstdt.net/
21/05/2009 at 08:20 Massive Man, Solid Gold Suit says:
This thread has incited me to post for the very first time on RPS.
For POSITIVE reasons! I am a Christian, but I like (no, I regret that I feel the need) to think of myself as a Christian but not an idiot. So for starters I just want to commend all of you posters for being so very respectful of each other’s beliefs, and being able to explain and inquire without attacking or destroying. This is a rare thing on these, The Internets.
Anyway, I haven’t played Left Behind. I read the first book and it was (ahem) God-awful. Bad theology, worse writing, and apparently even worse game design? As an evangelical tool I can’t imagine it’s successful, and therefore only serves to further inflate a Christian subculture which has already alienated so many people form their neighbors that it’s saddening.
No, I can’t think of any good “Christian” games. I’m sure it wouldn’t be impossible to do (an “Oregon Trail”-esque adventure of the Exodus?), but I doubt one could make a successful or even entertaining game based literally on Biblical text. Christian themes, however…
Off the top of my head, and from two of my favorite games of all time:
In the Longest Journey, April wrestles with, and ultimately accepts (although she’s wrong) the decision that she is The Guardian, and is prepared essentially to give up her life in order to preserve humankind and to restore balance to the universe. This is a sacrifice not unlike Jesus’, who also struggled to accept his fate on the night he was arrested.
In Beyond Good and Evil, Jade fights for social justice and lovingly operates an orphanage. The prophets of the Old Testament are greatly concerned with social justice – In the Book of Isaiah God is appalled at the lack thereof. In the New Testament, it’s said that true religion means taking care of orphans – people in vulnerable and easily exploitable situations. (By the way, this is from the same book that urges people to be quick to listen, slow to talk, and slow to get angry. Sound advice to Fundamentalist Christians and those who dislike them).
Hell, even Mario’s quest to rescue the Princess from his reptilian foe is fairly analogous to God’s act in saving his bride, a community of believers. Of course, many other games share this romance/salvation motif. Think even of Today I Die – complete with common Biblical images of resurrection and light/dark.
Are these games Christian? No, but they are games with positive themes that overlap Biblical teaching. And if a non-Christian gamer can recognize Jade’s best qualities in someone they know to be Christian, doesn’t that accomplish something greater than a game filled with dubious Apcalyptic excitement and anti-evolution rhetoric?
Oh, and now I’ve really gone and gotten myself wishing for an Exodus Trail game.
21/05/2009 at 08:22 bigredrock says:
No, some of you are insane girls.
Just kidding.
21/05/2009 at 08:27 bigredrock says:
The Day Today was great. Brass Eye was patchy, but at its best just incredible. Jam is probably my favourite thing that Chris Morris has done, but it’s a bit of an acquired taste. Never got into Nathan Barley.
My take on Chris Morris’ stuff is that:
1. There is a line
2. Chris Morris knows there is a line
3. He just doesn’t see how it applies to him
21/05/2009 at 08:46 Bananaphone says:
Christian Fundamentalist, Biblical Literalist, myself.
(we are not all insane guys)
[Not going to have this become people's faiths being shouted at - the rest of the internet's for that. And it's not because I disagree with you, Bananaphone, since I don't - John]
21/05/2009 at 08:49 Hulk Hogan says:
Why can we no longer think of the British Isles without the word “paedoph” in front of them?
21/05/2009 at 08:58 Sartoris says:
Imagine my horror when, after reading the article and minimizing my browser, I realized the second picture in the article had been used as my wallpaper. Immediately I suspected foul Christian play. I suppose I clicked something inadvertently, but still…creepy.
21/05/2009 at 09:17 PC Monster says:
@Hulk Hogan – “Paedoph British Isles”?
That makes no sense.
@Sartoris: God’s mouse-hand works in mysterious ways…
21/05/2009 at 09:25 Wildbluesun says:
Ugh, those info-screens. x.X Find out more, kids!
There are documented cases (especially in microorganisms) of variation within a species developing into different species that cannot interbreed…
In-progress example: http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12001839
[Dogs have been re-classified as a subspecies of wolves, canis lupus familaris.]
Also, look, the city of Ayodhya still exists! THEREFORE the Hindu god Rama MUST HAVE ruled over it [supposedly his return to Ayodhya from exile is the root of the festival of Diwali, hence my mentioning it]. Because a place existing is proof that everything that people say happened there clearly did happen.
/hasn’t read most of the comment thread
21/05/2009 at 09:25 Bobsy says:
Today being Thor’s Day I have burned a longboat in my front garden as sacrifice. Hopefully the mighty thunder god will spare us his wrath for another week.
I think it’s important that, as a species, we cover all bases. I hope someone’s keeping the Sumerian pantheon happy.
21/05/2009 at 09:51 MonkeyMonster says:
I can take care of Freyja for you tomorrow Bobsy ;)
Oh as I ended up reading more about Sumerian from reading Snow Crash (few years back) who else has ? It has a whole blob of religious shenanigans, gaming and gods! Fits perfectly into this thread :D
21/05/2009 at 10:22 phil says:
Nuanced and explicitely Christian influences can be found in many games.
The whole martyr/redeemer narrative is fairly common – in JRPGs in particular. Weirdly, the World Ends With You had you buddy up with God in disguise for a good chunk of the story; I seem to remember he disliked cola and came off as a little superior, which is understandable.
21/05/2009 at 10:50 Demikaze says:
All new skirmish mode?
Really?
21/05/2009 at 10:52 Dolphan says:
How on Earth has this thread stayed civil? This is RELIGION. On the INTERNET. :-o I realise John’s been editing, but it doesn’t look like that much. Wow.
21/05/2009 at 10:58 Bobsy says:
I’d hate to find that, after I die, the afterlife is actually Valhalla. It would not be a fun eternity, because 25 years of gaming violence doesn’t engender me to a place where I’d be required to brain everyone around me with a double-handed battleaxe on a daily basis.
Ahem.
I was going to recommend that all brits look up the Belief episode of Inside The Medieval Mind on the BBC iPlayer, because it’s an excellent demonstration of just how wacky Christianity can get. But it’s gone from the 7-day archive now, so you can’t. Shame. It was a good one.
21/05/2009 at 11:05 gulag says:
I’ve got this idea for a media ‘thing’. Zombie Hero Saints, shambling holy relics/church leaders and stars of their own lurid publications, extolling their manifest virutes and detailing their battles against the forces of darkness and other bad stuff, like universal health care and eating shellfish. Think Pat Mills’ ABC Warriors meets Starship Troopers meets anything by Moorcock.
‘Zombie Hero Saints’, I’m claiming that; back off or it’s the Shank-Grenade for you!
21/05/2009 at 11:21 redpanda says:
Funky Badger : I suppose you link the spanish inquisition wikiarticle to answer Tei’s statement about weird religious things happening in USA and not in Spain, a supposedly “very” religious country. Well, I suppose you keep in mind that Inquisition was de facto abolished like 300 years ago…
And, by the way, if you look the statistics, Spanish inquisition killed betwen 3000 and 5000 people in 200 and some years. That’s about 20 people for year. Horrible, without doubt, but not specially gory, at least for that age…
If you look the stats of the contemporary catholic prosecutions in England, you’ll probably end with a bigger figure of deaths in a smaller time bracket.
21/05/2009 at 11:22 Kurt Lennon says:
OK, I guess my posts are being deleted because they don’t correlate with the author’s spoonfed, indoctrinated belief system.
21/05/2009 at 11:27 Alec Meer says:
Your posts are being deleted by an unwaveringly aetheist other staff member on this site (that’d be me) because you’re needlessly trolling. Shush, now.
21/05/2009 at 11:45 bonuswavepilot says:
@Solopsistnation: Nathan Barley can be hard to watch if you aren’t into what I shall term “cringe comedy”. Personally I quite like it, but if you aren’t into the sort of dark comedy where the idiots are pervasive and usually the victor, you might find it hard going.
I think the site which accompanied the show (trashbat.co.ck) is still up – should give you the flavour. If you’re into UK comedy in general, you’ll see some familiar faces amongst the cast.
21/05/2009 at 12:14 Bozzley says:
Bloody hell, The Day Today AND Brass Eye, mentioned in the comments of a post about a Fundamentalist (emphasis on the mentalist) Christian RTS? Superb!
Why not add Look Around You to the list? Not as controversial, but it does feature science and cavemen and things that Fundamentalist Christians don’t like. And “thants”.
21/05/2009 at 12:20 Man Raised By Puffins says:
@ solipsistnation:
I found it to be utterly unfunny dreck with only a vanishingly small clutch of skits raising a smile. Bits and pieces of it are up on Youtube, if not the whole lot, so I’d strongly suggest checking it out there to see whether or not it’s your bag before forking out.
Both The Day Today and brasseye are great though. I’m more of a fan of the former (surprise, surprise), but I find brasseye is the more cohesive slice of satire.
Also, if you’re still hungering for contempary UK comedies after those two check out The Armando Iannucci Shows and The Thick of It if you get the chance.
21/05/2009 at 12:22 Meat Circus says:
@bonuswavepilot:
I love cringe comedy. I love Chris Morris. I love Charlie Brooker.
And yet, Nathan Barley was balls. It was badly put together: neither of them are comedy writers, and it showed. It’s a poorly-cobbled-together series of sitcom cliches with unlikable characters.
21/05/2009 at 12:27 Oddtwang says:
Solipsistnation: Jam is excellent (Mister Lizard and the Fixer girl are personal favourites), The Day Today (and On The Hour, the radio show which became TDT) wonderful and Brass Eye contains some of the greatest comedy material this country has ever produced*. (“Genetically, paedophiles have got more in common with crabs than they do with you or I. There’s no evidence for it, but it IS scientific fact!”).
Nathan Barley was criticised at the time for being very London-centric, but personally (as a non-Londoner) I think what put some people off was that it was a sitcom which contained no sympathetic or likeable characters whatsoever (well, arguably one I guess). Definitely worth a bit of patience in my opinion.
On the subject (ish) of the rapture and other Christian mythology in other media, I can recommend the Strange Girl comic books, which deal with the post-rapture existence of an atheist teenager whose family was taken up, in the resulting hell-on-earth. Very funny indeed.
The Lucifer spinoff from The Sandman is rather more highbrow, and takes a huge amount of Christian (and other faiths’) mythology as its springboard – Lucifer is probably my favourite antihero.
* This may be hyperbole.
21/05/2009 at 12:40 kjrubberducky says:
Disclaimer: I’m Christian.
I did play the first game, and it was bad. Really, really bad. I don’t know if a Christian game can even be done, because most center around conflict, but Christ said to “turn the other cheek,” and to “love your enemies.” So most of the traditional games’ formats would be inappropriate, e.g. FPS, RTS, RPG. There’s still the adventure and platforming genres, I suppose…
Anyways, I did enjoy the actual Left Behind series, despite all the criticisms. Seeing as it’s a work of fiction, I can suspend my disbelief on some of the more tenuous plot elements. I saw it as an exercise in creative thought, speculating how the world would end, just like any apocalyptic novel; I didn’t realize that some people actually believe it, let alone the authors!
I read the Da Vinci Code, and Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown, and enjoyed them both immensely, as they are fairly good fictional novels. But I am amazed that people can take beliefs so far. My pastor actually ended up doing a sermon on the Da Vinci Code, the gist if it being, “It’s in the fiction section for a reason,” but he still brought up a few other points, too.
As for my Christian gaming habits, well, I play on a Christian TF2 server; does that count? lol Mostly it’s just standard rules about pornography and profanity, but we do get a few people who are actually interested who join, and we talk. We also have idiots that join, then change their name to “Satan” and start voice spamming, but those don’t last long.
Also: Thanks for the link to the Slactivist. Definitely makes for some interesting and thought provoking reading.
21/05/2009 at 12:40 Sparvy says:
@Bobsy, If I recall correctly Valhalla was more about drinking shouting and eating pork from an endlessly resurrecting swine, I thought the fighting was held of until the last battle during Ragnaros? Anyway, you didnt get to valhalla unless you died in battle, everyone else just went to Hel.
Overall I must say there is a distinct lack of good, mythology based games, christian or otherwise.
21/05/2009 at 12:46 Gap Gen says:
I guess one problem with making evangelising games is that big companies probably won’t fund games that promote controversial viewpoints. It’s probable that the evangelical movement in America has enough funds to support a limited game like this (or maybe even a triple-A production), but I can’t imagine many studios actively seeking controversy (Rockstar aside). Even an indie studio producing a game exploring, say, Nazism* would probably be frowned upon by the Shouty Newspaper Men.
*Of course I’m not arguing that Christianity is fascist. I’m talking in broader terms of promoting ideologies that the gamer may not share.
21/05/2009 at 13:19 mrrobsa says:
Ah, Rock Paper Shotgun. The distinguished gentleman’s gaming blog. This is why we can have mostly civil religio-talk on the interwebs. Good stuff all.
Oh and I’m gonna wave the Nathan Barley flag high, even without being a Londoner I can instantly recognise the types of twats that populate this very original comedy.
It’s well brown, yeah?
21/05/2009 at 13:21 Dolphan says:
@Gap Gen: I would guess communism/socialism as a more likely candidate than fascism, since it would still piss off a lot of people (especially in the US) without having the inherent evilness of fascism. Not really sure how a game would ‘explore’ a political stance, or indeed a religion, but I’d be interested to see people try.
21/05/2009 at 13:27 Andrew Dunn says:
Anyways, I did enjoy the actual Left Behind series, despite all the criticisms. Seeing as it’s a work of fiction, I can suspend my disbelief on some of the more tenuous plot elements. I saw it as an exercise in creative thought, speculating how the world would end, just like any apocalyptic novel; I didn’t realize that some people actually believe it, let alone the authors!
I read the Da Vinci Code, and Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown, and enjoyed them both immensely, as they are fairly good fictional novels.
I started wondering what kind of person could see any literary merit in the Left Behind series at all, then you qualified it with this. I can rest easy now.
21/05/2009 at 14:38 phil says:
@meat circus
Nathan Barley was one of the best things brit TV ever produced, it was MEANT to be horribly painful to watch with only the occasional glimmer of humour coming from contemptible idiots banging against reality or their own callous disregard for each other or themselves – That’s what living in Shoreditch is like; a grime purgatory of over privileged, posturing thirty something children, using each other as disposable scratching posts, producing crap and worrying whether people will understand the irony of their shoes.
21/05/2009 at 15:02 Gap Gen says:
Dolphan: Well, games where you’re encouraged to do things within an ideological framework that isn’t your own. Many first-person games are deliberately set with you saving the world or defending the American way of life. If they’re not, as with, say, Red Alert, it’s a bit slapstick (even with the original, which was still pretty dark).
One example would be, say, defending Russia from America as an aggressor (perhaps WiC: Soviet Assault is this?). I’m not sure if this is a good example.
The thing I was getting at was whether or not a game that evangelised would be good in general. It would certainly polarise opinion, but then games do this for other reasons. The debate about The Path kinda falls into this, where John Walker described how he didn’t like what he perceived the message of the game to be, which was a negative, nihilistic portrayal of growing up.
21/05/2009 at 15:17 Jeremy says:
Well, in the recent few weeks I’ve played a lot of quick indie games that had a lot of emotion in a small amount of play, some of which were shown here. One was Today I Die and the other was Fathom. I think these kinds of small games could be a way for people to express various ideologies in an effective way without being quite so… in your face about it. Or, maybe they could just make Left Behind 4 Dead.
21/05/2009 at 15:29 Heliocentric says:
I remember reading that most art in nearly every medium is about sex and death. I assume that religion is a close third, shame that more games which philosophically and religiously challenge us don’t exist. That said, this is coming from an agnostic, not everyone likes being challenged.
But I loved it when Braid touched on determinism, or that RTS with non linear time. As ham handed as it was, the (apparently butchered) Ayn Rand objectivism in Bioshock was something I’d never before heard of.
Just as Portal challenged relativity of space I’d like to play games where other philosophical areas are challenged. Personally I feels games are suited to this observation of foreign (to yourself) philosophy as games are about understanding and using and subverting rules.
21/05/2009 at 15:37 Bobsy says:
@Sparvy:
Ah well, you’re showing up the fact that I know relatively little about Norse paganism. But I’m pretty sure you were expected to have a big old scrap every day, ready to be ressurected the next day to do it all again. In preperation for Ragnarok.
Of course, my chances of dying in battle are relatively slim, on account of my being a massive pussy. On the other hand, should I somehow find myself in a battle, my chances of dying go up relatively dramatically.
(now that I think about it, my principle sources for Norse mythology are a Horrible History book and Tomb Raider: Underworld. And that’s terrible)
21/05/2009 at 16:04 Gap Gen says:
Jeremy: Left Behind 4 Dead would be a wonderfully subversive idea. Even just reskinning all the zombies to have clean haircuts and sweater vests.
21/05/2009 at 16:32 EyeMessiah says:
I’d like to second Jam as CM’s opus. Its patchy at times to, but awesome nonetheless. Best watched on DVD from start to finish in one sitting IMHO. It makes you feel pretty special afterward, and makes you think that ANYTHING you see on TV immediately after it is some kind of absurd dark satire. This feeling that everything is cynical satire can be hard to shake.
I love the guy who has himself buried alive because he is so happy with his life, and the guy who jumps out of a 1st floor window 20 times rather than a 20th floor window once, and the doctor who blinds himself to get out of treating a patient – for no apparent reason. Good times!
IN JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMM
21/05/2009 at 16:32 Janto says:
Evangelical works are interesting, and to be honest, I think there’s nothing wrong with them, so long as they’re not stuffed full of lies presented as FACTS. I’m an atheist, but not one of the scary kind. Without the evolution of ideas of religion and spirituality our societies and lives would probably be nasty, stupid and short.
But yes, evangelism. Narnia’s evangelism, and so arguably is Beowolf. Because the pre-christian Irish legends were written down by monks, they’ve been changed to include strong Christian themes as well, the classic example being the return of a pagan warrior to Ireland from the Land of Eternal Youth, where he promptly starts to die and is hurriedly baptised.
Tragically (ironic usage here folks) the crude evangelism that seems to be put forward here can’t compete in the mass media, although it’ll probably snare a few souls. An evangelical religious game would need to focus on the practices of the religion, rather than the trappings. It doesn’t matter if your game is about a Space marine fighting aliens or a messed up teenage girl in a fantasy world, so long as the game is based around the tenets of the faith.
A good example of direct religious-based games for a Christian perspective would be something like SimChurch, where you start out in a rented hall and can grow your congregation through meeting the spiritual needs of your parishioners, helping out in social work, etc. A Muslim one could center around the pilgrimage to Mecca, one long complicated RPG quest to get to your destination without compromising your ideals.
Game ideas like this have the potential to be good, effective ways of spreading the central message of your religion by making a fun game that just happens to be about a religious concept. More challenging ideas could be introduced to steer away from edutainment, such as in the SimChurch concept having the rich parishioners yu’d started to attract disapprove of your homeless shelter and become a lot less generous with their funds, or devil’s bargains from corporate charities or superiors within the church.
21/05/2009 at 17:46 Jeremy says:
Black and White had some interesting concepts built into a spiritual model. Having people designated to worshiping so you can build your miracle gauge faster, being able to use a gigantic lion, bear, turtle, etc. to inspire fear and awe in others. Too bad the game wasn’t much fun to play, because it had some really cool ideas involved. They needed to have a more open ended sort of game rather than a very focused goal oriented game. I wanted to play that game to make my Tiger grow and be awesome and get more followers, not so I could do all of these little menial tasks. I should not be using my miracle powers to keep up with lumber and grain deficiencies… not ever.
21/05/2009 at 17:56 Dr.Evanzan says:
Wow, this has been a very interesting yet surprisingly civil thread.
Kudos to the RPS community!
I’m kind of coming in late to the party now, but thought I’d chip in on ‘Christian games’.
Basically, I’m not sure ‘Christian game’ (or, for that matter, ‘Muslim game’ or ‘Hindu game’, etc) is a useful description nor a useful target.
To follow on from John and others, I’d absolutely agree with comments about a Christian Media bubble in the US.
It seems to me, speaking as an evangelical Christian, that it is more about a consumerisation of American (or part thereof) culture as anything to do with the Christian faith.
I can certainly understand the desire to create a sub-culture entirely removed from the wider world but it does rather seem to miss the point of evangelical Christianity.
The Left Behind game (as with most every other ‘Christian game’ I’ve seen) seems to just take a standard game formula and then adorn it with overtly ‘Christian’ paraphernalia.
While this might help it sell to the Christian media market, I’m not sure it really makes it a Christian game (at least not in any sense stronger than we might describe a game as a ‘Zombie game’ or a ‘Space game’).
This seems to be entirely the wrong way round to me.
Rather, I would think a Christian game should in some way fuse a Christian message with the core of the actual game in a meaningful way without needing to appear ‘Christian’.
Now, as a Christian, I believe my Christian faith should influence my daily life.
If I were then to make a game, it would presumably be influenced by my beliefs but does that make it a ‘Christian game’?
(Likewise, does a game made by an Atheist become an ‘Atheist game’, etc?)
So I’m not sure a tag like ‘Christian game’ is helpful.
I think it would be more helpful if people focussed on making good games that actually made you think about a given issue than producing a poor but cosmetically ‘Christian game’ (or ‘Buddhist game’, etc).
It might be you don’t agree with the game’s message but a good game will at least make you think about it and hopefully entertain you as you do.
21/05/2009 at 17:56 Heliocentric says:
I boosted my magic power by sacrificing babies while having a half dozen men impregnate all the womenfolk… I also sacrificed old people, they are useless.
I Had enough magic power to build anything the god way, starvation was limited as I didn’t need worshippers. Shame you could never train your creature to exclusively eat old people.
My creature was actually very holy, despite eating people he casting healing spells all the time on the people. Like I’d trust that thing with fireballs.
edit: I’d play that Sim church game, sounds like it’d likely just get white washed if the developers were fundamentalists though. Its the contrasts and complexities that are interesting.
21/05/2009 at 18:10 skalpadda says:
A British friend recently introduced me to Brass Eye, and while it is very brilliant, the problem with watching it as a non-Brit (I’m Swedish) was that it took me a whole episode before I realized that the people in the “interviews” were actually real celebrities, since I didn’t recognize half of them. Still brilliant though :)
Squirrels are not ninjas, we should all know by now that they’re parachuting suicide bombers, eh? ;)
I would love to play a good Christianity-themed game, an adventure/RPG made by groovy people with the guts to challenge your moral compass could be awesome. I think the most interesting theological ideas I’ve seen in a game are the ones in KotOR2, which is kind of sad as the world is so removed from our own. Or maybe not, I dunno :)
21/05/2009 at 18:15 bigredrock says:
Imagine a world where you didn’t know who Noel Edmonds was. I envy you more than you can imagine.
21/05/2009 at 18:30 Dolphan says:
@Helio: Ayn Rand’s Objectivism was always pretty ham-handed. It has a certain following in the US and some evangelists on the net, but is generally largely ignored by academic philosophers. The Objectivists cry snobbery, of course, but the reason is simply that Rand’s arguments were largely old ones that have long been replaced by more sophisticated versions or refuted altogether. Her criticisms of previous philosophers like Kant are particularly bad, since they tend to manifest a lack of understanding of the thinkers she criticises (when I read some of her stuff I found it hard to believe she’d actually read Kant).
It’s not that there aren’t mainstream philosophers with views close to Objectivism in various areas – it’s just that they tend to be a lot more in touch and less dogmatic than followers of Rand.
21/05/2009 at 18:33 Jeremy says:
@Evanzan
I completely agree with what you said about slapping a label on a game. It is really frustrating as a Christian to see someone produce a game that really reeks and just throw some Christian words and imagery on it, then push it off to the fundamentalist market. It definitely gives off the wrong impression. For far too long, people have been willing to push out terrible literature, movies, games and music just to put the Christian label on it (edit: or any label for that matter, this doesn’t just apply to Christianity), and it seems to me that if you’re passionate about something.. anything, that you should want to make it with a certain level of excellence.
21/05/2009 at 19:36 ACESandElGHTS says:
@Jeremy: True. This is why I really respect those in the media arena (music, literature, pictures, whatever) that stick to their principles and continue to excel. Andrew Eldritch, former Sisters of Mercy frontman and outspoken Christian, being one.
Freaky fundamentalists need to fake controversy and manufacture schisms to create an Us v. Them scenario. Without it, they would just sit there sucking with no excuse.
21/05/2009 at 21:04 John Walker says:
I’d just like to belatedly add that despite Chris Morris being the only real satirist of the late 20th/21st century, and despite Charlie Brooker being a huge inspiration of mine and a hugely funny writer, I found Nathan Barley utterly awful. Just a horrible, lazy mess of mocking a stereotype that had long since faded (imagine a man who’s always on his mobile phone! Who even HAS a mobile phone?!) and worn sitcom cliche used without irony.
I like to pretend it never happened.
21/05/2009 at 21:32 Funky Badger says:
Nathan Barley is alive and well and living in Shoreditch. And making all television programs. And most radio. The NB TVGoHome strips were great, the TV less so, but still good.
21/05/2009 at 21:33 Bozzley says:
Also – Chris Morris and Peter Baynham on Radio 1 were superb, too. In a different way, but still good. Erm, that is all.
21/05/2009 at 22:20 Sonic Goo says:
Exorcism is (still) an official part of the catholic church. So how about an exorcism game? Like Psychonauts with demons and such.
21/05/2009 at 23:03 cjlr says:
Good points about the difficulty in defining what is a ‘christian’ game…
When you ignore all the pointless rules and exhortations to kill infidels, most religions boil down to “be excellent to each other”; that, of course, leaves you with no conflicts to explore, and thus some really boring fiction (hell, it’s practically Bartledanian). Posit demons, though, and you’ve got a built-in source of discord.
Or you could just say ‘[religious] themes’, where [religious] is replaced by your faith of choice. But then what are you left dealing with – love and redemption and justice? Sex and death? That’s what all fiction’s about anyway. But then there’s always that bizarrely Christian idea that suffering is somehow righteous…
Wait! I get it! That’s what Left Behind the game is about! It’s so bad that trying to play it is penance of some sort! Self-flagellation in video game form! It makes so much sense…
Um, and good on us for maintaining a civil discussion, yeah? I can just picture all the RPS readers peering at ye fora over our monocles…
21/05/2009 at 23:04 mrrobsa says:
John Walker:
Surely the phone thing was more of an attack on those who would see their phones as a status symbol, and upgrade them every 6 months to stay fashionable. And using the scratch decks and jabbering away in public just shows these people’s disregard for civility and others.
Plus I think ‘having a massive ’5′ button ‘cos it’s the most commonly used number’ is genuinely funny.
21/05/2009 at 23:11 Funky Badger says:
It’s well weapon.
21/05/2009 at 23:49 malkav11 says:
I should point out that -of course- there are games out there that are explicitly or implicitly influenced by Christian themes and/or mythology, just like there are for many other religions. But there’s “has religious themes/storylines” (Xenogears, for a sadly console-centric example), and then there’s “Christian Game”. One thinks religion makes an interesting story element. The other is presenting The Truth. With caps. I don’t see the latter kind ever succeeding as a game, because the game bit is inevitably a far second or third place to The Truth-pushing. And I don’t see them having much success convincing people, either, because a) they’re awful, and b) they usually lack any real skill with argumentation.
Same goes for Christian Fiction (as opposed to fiction written by Christians).
Weirdly enough there’s some okay Christian Music out there. Very little of any genuine -excellence-, but a far cry better than things like Zoo Race or Left Behind. I wonder what the difference is.
22/05/2009 at 02:13 TCM says:
It’s almost impossible to make out and out bad music, unless you’re deliberately trying, or a rapper.
22/05/2009 at 02:24 Dorsch says:
nah son rap owns
22/05/2009 at 02:44 Muzman says:
Most Freud fans would file religion under death (with some overlap in sex, how much depending on the religion). Religion is just one big repressive matrix yasee.
And I reckon Bioshock took Rand to task quite well (not that I’m particularly well versed). To please Rand fans you could not portray it in any way that could be construed as negative. They’re quite religious like that, a lot of the time (it is mainly a riff on Atlas Shrugged though, and that’s not the whole story).
The problem is mainly that its telling criticisms of the Atlas Shrugged mentality and idealism in general are all between-the-lines in the backstory. The main narrative only really deals with the aftermath.
Incidentally, pointing out Christian parallels in much of storytelling is a little ‘well duh’ given its place in western history (some said this way up above there).
A Christian game is elusive because games have a certain component of will to them. I’d say evangelical types only really understand mantras and discipline. They couldn’t easily concieve of ways to spread the word without holding your hand and making sure you get it ‘right’.
However, the themes of ritual, repetition and social understanding of invisible forces as well as individuals following thin threads of clues through inference and hermenutics to an elusive life changing “truth” that are fairly common in religious… stuff, the place for religious gaming is clearly MMOs and ARGs.
22/05/2009 at 02:48 Hypocee says:
Note: Not saying that all or most ‘Christian music’ is any adjective aside from the mysterious one.
Anecdotes!
At one point in University, I drove across the state – five hours one way – on a roughly fortnightly basis. This resulted in a lot of driving into and out of a wide variety of radio stations’ areas as my creaky radios hunted for signals. One incident really stands out in my mind – a couple of minutes after one station had faded out to static I got bored and hit scan. I caught the next song on the new station right at the beginning. After a few seconds of silence, I heard six drumbeats and one guitar chord and my brain lit up – ‘this is a Christian rock song!’ And it was right; this particular song eventually attempted to make a peppy bridge out of the line ‘O Lord, I am worthless without you.’ To this day I wonder just what it is that permeates the genre so thoroughly that before vocals or even a melody or rhythm came in, I could so surely identify an example. Maybe they all use one kind of amp, or something.
My cow in Black and White was a wonderful cow. It spent every minute of all its days planting and harvesting wood, entertaining the children of my villages, casting non-violent miracle spells for the less enlightened and pooing in and watering my people’s fields. It stated that it was happy and loved me and my 80% or whatever good rating. It was also hunched and covered with smoke which wavered before its malevolent glowing eyes, since it was rated as 95% evil.
22/05/2009 at 09:46 phil says:
The board is so popular we’ve been hit by bots – surely a mark of success.
Also, @John W, “outdated” stereotypes in Nathan Barley? Hardly, half of Old Street use the series as ironic inspiration, the other half just dive into the £20 racks at Beyond Retro, wear whatever sticks to them, then come out looking like a series extra anyway.
22/05/2009 at 13:36 bonuswavepilot says:
@Mssrs Circus & Walker: I must beg to differ on the quality of Nathan Barley. Perhaps it helps to be down here in the colonies, so that the stereotype is less familiar to me? I found some of the detail quite entertaining (Ashcroft’s ear-hurtingly nasty ringtone, Barley’s description of himself as a “self-actualised media-node” and so forth), and the terribly pre-destined nature of the winning of ‘The Idiots’ to make for lovely black comedy (particularly the ‘Preacher Man’ episode where Dan’s protestations against the spectacle he has been dragged into being mixed seamlessly into it) as well. As someone with a lit degree though, I know from bitter experience that these arguments cannot be won. In any case, I agree wholeheartedly about Brass Eye and The Day Today.
23/05/2009 at 00:57 Fumarole says:
“Pfeh! I prefer my games about more realistic topics like Space Marines or Kobolds.”
Best comment I’ve seen on RPS, which says a lot. Congratulations – right now my coworkers are possibly wondering why I am grinning like an idiot.
27/05/2009 at 05:05 Thranx says:
I’m a follower of the Big Guy Upstairs… but attempts a PR wrangling for a HORRIBLE game make me sick. I read a few of the books until they just started milking the fans for money by taking what was supposed to be a 3 book series and covering a weeks worth of time in one book to extend it to a like 18 book series (exaggeration… I stopped counting at 7).
The game was SO bad. Just… bad. Christians need to quit trying to make games. Brothers, it just isn’t our landscape… try gaming ministries like server hosting or something, because a game about coverting people is just lame.
08/09/2011 at 08:33 bear912 says:
I’ve long held that a game based on the Old Testament would be pretty hilarious. It would almost certainly come across as ludicrously irreverent and offend EVERYONE EVER, but a level based on the 2 Kings passage where Elisha is mocked by some young’ins would be delightfully inane. For those not familiar with the passage, Elisha proceeds to curse the youths, and suddenly two bears appear out of the woods, and maul all 42 of them. This would naturally lend itself to two-player co-op bear mauling, which, obviously, is simply priceless.
… And I’m one of those church-going, Jesus-loving, God-botherers as well.