“Praise the Lord!” they shout as the vile UN forces are ground under the treads of Jesus’ own tank brigade beneath a large ad for Dell computers plastered on an in-game billboard.
We’ve all been searching for a game where you can play as a group of militant Christian evangelists fighting the evil forces of Secularism, and we’ve finally found it. Left Behind: Eternal Forces is a game where the UN and its Antichrist leader Nicholae Carpathia (which must be pronounced Niiiiiic-ko-lie Kar-PAAAAAAA-thee-uh to obtain its full amusement factor) are vilified along with all non-Christians, education and rock music. If it weren’t a video game itself, Left Behind would almost certainly have included them in its list of the forces of evil as well.
Set in the early aftermath of “The Rapture”, an event in which some Christians believe that they will be instantly transported to Heaven before the world is thrown into chaos by the Antichrist, Left Behind starts with a premise that at least some segment of the gaming world could get behind.
The real world counterparts of the game villain “Secularists’” on the other hand, while they may think that the idea of a game world where all of the evangelical Christians suddenly disappear from the face of the planet sounds fun, will quickly be disappointed when they find out the evangelicals still manage to preach at you from The Great Beyond, and the goal of the game is actually turning into them!
Murdering unbelievers along with other atrocities such as seeing secularist propaganda and listening to rock music can lower your units’ “Spirit Levels” until they lose faith and switch sides. Fortunately, as in real life, there is a simple cure for all ills: prayer.
Whether you’ve heard a song that doesn’t glorify God, or you’ve merely shot a dozen people in their evil Secularist faces, prayer can bring your “Spirit Level” back up and keep you from losing faith.
It’s interesting that the performers of the game’s own Christian Rock music are not vilified along with other Rock Stars. Perhaps they managed to escape the malevolent clutches of the evil education system unscathed by college?
One of the most disturbing things about this game is that while it portrays the Christian Tribulation Forces as good in their ceaseless efforts to convert or kill the unbelievers, it shows musicians and unbelievers as forces of evil, even aligning them with cult leaders! Since when are “secularists” on the same side as cult leaders? Apparently since the poor martyr complex ridden evangelicals decided that life is just one big fight pitting Real Christians against Everyone Else.
Back in the game, God’s holy bullets rip through the bodies of the Global Community Peacekeepers (UN Peacekeeper stand-ins) as “Amazing Grace” plays in the background and the Tribulation Forces take down another group of unbelievers in the name of the Lord. This mind-bogglingly strange dichotomy is taken from the second official trailer for the game, so the sickness of this pairing is apparently lost on them.
In a vain attempt to make these battle scenes more palatable, the game’s designers chose to make it blood free. Sure, you can kill tons of people, but your poor little eyes are perfectly protected from the real problem with violence; the blood. Apparently it’s not that whole “killing” thing that’s a problem, just seeing the results.
At least the game won’t let you mow down groups of neutral people — until they decide to oppose you that is. Then they’re as bad as any lying Secularist pig and they deserve to be burned at the stake. If only the game’s designers had thought to include an Inquisition weapon set.
Left Behind II
Not content to sit on its laurels (such as they may be), Left Behind Games is hard at work on a sequel to its first multi-million dollar losing flop.
As it is likely to be another colossal failure, we should lend them our full support in its development. If the Left Behind publishers continue to bleed themselves dry with one financial blunder after another, we won’t be subjected to their garbage for much longer.
Unfortunately for Left Behind Games, they were unable to hide the blood pouring out of the gaping wounds in the game at launch. They have since released a patch that supposedly addresses at least the most egregious of the game’s bugs and faults, but one has to wonder, if God blesses endeavors He supports and curses those he dislikes, then perhaps this is a game that God doesn’t want us to play?
Despite Left Behind Games’ attempts at intimidating people through legal threats into not criticizing their prodigious flop of a game, major review sites kept their criticisms and low ratings up, which is probably a major reason for the multi-million dollar loss on this steaming pile of “How Not to Make a Game.”
Unless you’re in the mood for a buggy, preachy game of Christian Jihad, Left Behind: Eternal Forces is a good game to leave behind.
Pingback: Better Than Faith Reviews Left Behind: Eternal Forces | Vox ex Machina
The books these are based on are also rather awful.
This post (and this blog in general) is a great example of exactly why I’m no longer an atheist.
Really? I find that not believing in gods is not something I have a choice in, it is simply the conclusion I have come to based on the evidence.
I can’t just start believing in gods any more than I can start believing that I have four arms. I could pretend I believed it, but then I would just be a liar.
I can understand not wanting to label yourself with the word “atheist”, and I’m not always happy about using it either, but it’s the closest word I can find to let people know that I don’t believe in any gods.
As for this game review in particular, you may or may not be surprised to know that many Christians were also against the game. Some of the reasons they didn’t like it were because they thought it was a bad portrayal of Christianity, because of the violence, or just because it was just not a very good game.
I don’t know what you believe at this point, but if you really think that we’re doing something wrong here, please be more specific about what you think the problem is.
We’re happy to get feedback, and enough people dislike something about the way we’re doing things then we will at least seriously consider changing them.
How funny you should say that, Kazz, because I found that believing in God is something I didn’t have a choice in, either, due to the evidence. I can’t stop believing in God anymore than I can stop believing that I have two arms.
Anyway, as far as the game goes, most of the criticism of this game from Christians and non-Christians was due to loads of misconceptions, half-truths, and lies spread by non-Christians who had never even played the game. If they had, they’d know there’s no “convert or kill” in the game and that all aspects of the game (from the website to the manual to the game itself) blatantly denounce such a thing. In fact, you can lose the game if you kill by violating the “peaceful resolution” goal for the levels. I have never once seen anyone criticizing the game talk about any of that, which makes me think one of two things: either they have never actually played the game (like this “review” indicates by the reviewer basing their comments on a trailer for the game) or they played the game and are lying about it.
Truly neutral reviewers have completely disagreed with the lie that this game promotes “convert or kill.”
IGN: “To keep the balance of power in your favor, you’ll have to find non-violent ways to avoid getting killed. Your units will definitely fight back in a life or death situation but, for the most part, you want to either avoid your enemies or have a ready plan to convert to your side using musicians and disciples. This gets much harder as the game progresses.”
ArsTechnica.com: “Many groups have made inaccurate statements about this game that need to be corrected. For one thing, it is not particularly violent. While there are violent aspects of the game, the game makes it clear that shooting is the last resort. Second, it is not hateful to other religions. It does have an agenda, and I think you need to know that going in, but there’s no bashing of other faiths.”
GameSpy: “The other “controversial” aspect of the game is its explicit connection to evangelical Christian philosophy. Here too, the hysteria is seriously overblown. Within the game itself, the amount of proselytizing is kept to a minimum. Units bow their heads to pray in order to replenish their “spirit” resource and giving a unit orders may elicit a response like “For the Lord!” or “In His name!” Prayer scrolls with Biblical verses are also available as power-ups that can call down angels for bonuses, but anyone looking for explicit “Kill the unbelievers!”-style content to justify their fear of the game won’t find it here. The biggest “message” portion of the game is actually the “Learn more” screens that become available after each mission. These display interesting text passages about the history of Christianity and CliffsNotes versions of aspects of evangelical theology while playing cuts from top-selling Christian musical acts (with a convenient “buy the album” link to the Internet).”
Even the Anti-Defamation League (no friend of evangelical Christianity), while criticizing the game’s supposedly “exclusionary” theology, denied the game promotes “convert or kill”: “Conversion to Christianity in the game is not depicted as forcible in nature, and violence is not rewarded in the game.”