[shiajun]

Found this article in Wired.com. Seems Chritian gaming is getting a major surge. It's impressive.

http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,21...w=wn_tophead_1

[Hammerite]

It's a stupid idea.
This post WAS longer originally... but... I got bored... and dinner was soon.
Very soon and I was quite hungry.

[RLacey]

I've never seen anything wrong with having Christian-themed and orientated games. What annoys me is the singular lack of quality in much of the output of these developers. I'm not going to go out and buy a game - regardless of its views on morality - unless it's a good game (Big Rigs excluded).

[fov]

There's also that "you're with us or you're against us" mentality. The game about escaping from the computer sounds kind of neat, but I don't see what's "Christian" about it at all. Which is not to say that a developer that makes a so-called Christian game should be limited to that, but it blurs the lines of what they're actually accomplishing. Would a parent who wants their kids to have Christian games buy it if it were made by Digital Praise, but not buy the exact same game if it were made by Rockstar? And if they're willing to buy anything Digital Praise puts out, without looking at reviews or trying it themselves because they're under the impression that anything a Christian developer puts out must be quality, how is that any better than the parents who buy their kids GTA without reading up on it first?

The Rebel Planet is geared toward teens and young adults and includes some violence, according to Rebel Planet Creations founder Peter Churness. He uses the time period after creation and before Noah took to the ark as the backdrop for the game, in which players battle dinosaurs, giant spiders and human enemies.

Churness, a Lutheran pastor, isn't sure if the game (due out in summer 2006) will feature humans dying, but the violence will not be gory. Although Adam appears as a character (after Eve dies) and the biblical character Enoch is renamed Orion, no quotes appear from the Bible, according to Churness.

Err... I don't even know where to start with this. Were there dinosaurs and giant spiders in the Bible? What makes this a Christian game... the fact that the violence isn't gory? I seem to remember Passion of the Christ having quite a bit of blood in it.

[mag]

I'd actually love to see some good Bible-based video games. The problem is that none of these are good. I mean, collecting "love, hope and faith points?" That's just absurd, and it, like most stuff that comes from evengelical Christians, demonstrates an almost total ignorance of what the Bible is about.

Originally Posted by fov

Err... I don't even know where to start with this. Were there dinosaurs and giant spiders in the Bible? What makes this a Christian game... the fact that the violence isn't gory? I seem to remember Passion of the Christ having quite a bit of blood in it.

It's a Christian game because it's based on Biblical characters. It uses the Bible as a foundation, but takes the story well beyond what's in the Bible. This one could actually be kind of neat, but I very much doubt it will be.

mag

[fov]

Originally Posted by mag

I mean, collecting "love, hope and faith points?" That's just absurd, and it, like most stuff that comes from evengelical Christians, demonstrates an almost total ignorance of what the Bible is about.

How about a game where you get points for picketing abortion clinics and throwing rocks at homosexuals?

I did NOT say that out loud. I didn't even think it. Five hundred lashes for me.

[imichaelj]

Speaking of Christian games, the megaselling *shudders* Left Behind book series is branching out into the realm of videogames. For those not familiar, the books are set after the "rapture" snaps up all the real Christians and drops them into heaven and the rest of the world is "left behind" to endure horrible destruction and misery.

From the official site:

LBG intends to develop games so as to include the same types of elements that have made interactive games popular for years and yet offer a less graphic experience to the sexual themes and gratuitous violence currently found in many games.

I'm not sure how they can avoid gratuitous violence and still have anything to do with the books.

[Orange Brat]

Anything Christian is big business and gaming is an underrepresented niche market. He who makes that first killer app will be a rich sinner. There are a few people using Gamestudio(my engine) to make faith based games. They're not all that great, but some sequels are popping up, so they must be making something to justify it.

Some nice adventure games could be made based on the Bible and other books of faith.

[insane_cobra]

A LEGO Biblical game, that would be cool! Or Jesus vs. The Church in which Christ comes back to Earth not to end the world, but to clear his name and save his children from what became of Christianity.

[Lucien21]

I had to snigger at the irony of this quote.

"Horwitz believes the recent success of Christian-themed media from companies such as Gaylord Entertainment"



There certainly is a big market especially in the US.

Not something I would be interested in playing. Especially the "Left Behind" series the ideology of the Christian Fundamentalist author is so barmy as to be insulting.

What is LaHaye's worldview? In a recent non-fiction book titled Mind Siege (coauthored with David Noebel), LaHaye outlines his model society a Religious Right utopia where there is no separation of church and state. Abortion is outlawed and homosexuality is lumped in with pedophilia and prostitution as "perverse sexual practices" that are "universally viewed as immoral and would be shunned." Censorship is rampant as the "Christian and pro-moral community" use the federal government to promulgate "decency" codes.

In LaHaye's perfect world, voucher subsidies for private religious education are freely available. Public schools are turned into centers for fundamentalist indoctrination with daily prayer, promotion of the Ten Commandments and creationism firmly ensconced. The Department of Education has been abolished, and teenagers are given no sex education at school. Instead, children are taught revisionist history about how the United States was founded to be a "Christian nation."

Women, in LaHaye's dream, would "stay at home to raise their babies," eschew feminism and submit to their husbands who would assume their God-given role as "the spiritual head of the family."

It's back to the crusades and everybit as barking mad as the other religious fundamentalists.

[Orange Brat]

Hey, I just skimmed that article(first post) and it mention's The Rebel Planet. That's a Gamestudio game and one of the nicer looking projects. I'll have to post that article in Peter's thread provided someone hasn't beaten me to it.

Here's the website...there's a trailer at the top: http://www.therebelplanet.com/

direct link to trailer: http://www.rebelplanetcreations.com/...yApril2005.wmv

It's back to the crusades and everybit as barking mad as the other religious fundamentalists

Uh, most people involved in the Crusades weren't Christian and they were a response to Muslim invasions.

[Ninja Dodo]

Anyone see that Southpark episode where Cartman starts a christian rockband because he figured all you have to do is make crappy songs and mention Jesus in every sentence...

Butters: "Oh, we're not h-actually Christians!"

Frankly I think religious propaganda should be banned. Faith or lack thereof is a personal thing and forcing one's own beliefs on others is as lacking in morals as it is lacking in any kind of common sense.

[Hammerite]

There is so much wrong with that LaHaye thing, it is politically incorrect, sexist (the whole anti-feminism thing isn't religion! its just stupid and wrong) and why is everything revolving around religion and america?
Not all of us are American! Not all of us are Christian either!
See, THIS is how Nazi bloody Germany started!

[Ninja Dodo]

Actually no, strike that, banning is wrong, but it should be kept strictly within its own circles, preaching to the choir if you will... as no one else deserves to be bothered with this patronizing crap*.

* I intend that in the most affectionate way... no seriously, I just mean any kind of propaganda is crap, the religious variety just being an annoyingly prevalent example.

[fov]

I don't have any problem with people tapping into a niche market, really. If they can make money off it, more power to them. I just question how different the games really are from any number of other "non-Christian," non-violent (and even violent) games.

[imichaelj]

Originally Posted by fov

I don't have any problem with people tapping into a niche market, really. If they can make money off it, more power to them. I just question how different the games really are from any number of other "non-Christian," non-violent (and even violent) games.

Exactly. I don't understand why these developers claim otherwise. Too bad there aren't any Christian games that involve thinking over action. I would imagine a major religion would provide enough source material for games with a little more depth.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Their design m.o. looks a bit skewed. They seem to only be mimicking the mechanics of games like Halo and Half-Life, saying to gamers, "Hey, check it out! We're letting you play shooters exactly like Halo and Half-Life except you're doing it for the glory of God!"

[sethsez]

Medusa didn't make Castlevania a true Greek mythology game, and namedropping Jesus doesn't make something a Christian game. There's more to Christianity than symbols and names, and sticking those in a game doesn't immediately covert anyone or strenghten faith. It's just a shameless money grab.

Then again, I also think Left Behind is trash. Not because it's a stupid interpretation of the Bible (though it is), but because it's horrible as literature.

[mag]

Originally Posted by Ninja Dodo

Frankly I think religious propaganda should be banned. Faith or lack thereof is a personal thing and forcing one's own beliefs on others is as lacking in morals as it is lacking in any kind of common sense.

So much for free speech, huh?

For one thing, how is talking about one's religion "forcing" it on anybody? It's not like anyone's holding a gun to your head. You don't even have to play the game if you don't want to. And for another thing, I really doubt these kinds of games are meant as a means of pushing Christian beliefs on non-Christians as much as they are meant to reinforce the beliefs of already practicing Christians. It's just giving them what they want, in the same way that secular artists create works that reinforce their belief systems.

Also, I would like to point out that, while these games certainly don't appear to be examples of it, not all games based on the Bible or Christian belief necessarily have to be "fundamentalist" or "religious propaganda."

mag

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by mag

Also, I would like to point out that, while these games certainly don't appear to be examples of it, not all games based on the Bible or Christian belief necessarily have to be "fundamentalist" or "religious propaganda."

Can you give us a couple or so examples, then? I'm not trying to discredit you, I'm just curious.