Here’s a Christmas gift idea this year: “LEFT BEHIND - Eternal Forces” is a new PC game to hit the market. Only $39.95 in all major game outlets and department stores. (Yes, even Walmart sells it).
Only, bummer: The game itself is a little twisted nasty thing.
It is set in
Your role, as the good guys, is to lead a Christian paramilitary - named The Tribulation Force - and fight the forces of the Antichrist (the Antichrist is the UN Secretary General, Nicolae Carpathia. Really!!)
There are no non-combatants: all the pedestrians will either join you or the Antichrist. And you have people in the street: those you can either CONVERT; if you fail, then you KILL them.
Bravo. Thank you for teaching our children the values of pacifism and coexistence. Convert them and kill them? Hmmm. Time for me to leave this country.
Wait, I almost forgot the nicest feat of the game:
Just like in Dragon Ball Z you could call the big dragon in the middle of a big fight, here, in the middle of the slaying, you can... push the PRAYER button. Then, all those you killed don’t matter anymore because you’re praying and God is on your side.
Oh wait, here is the defence of those who made the game: they say it teaches good values (???), and is less violent (??? Ok, there is no blood, but seriously, killing pedestrians in
Other criticism the game has received, besides being the product of a completely fucked up racist psycho case:
- it is sexist: when you recruit people, they can become your ‘friend’ and become soldiers or builders or evangelists of whatever. But if you recruit a woman: she becomes merely a ‘friend woman’ and she can only be a medic or a musician. Hmm. So for those who made the game, women are there to entertain the man and to caress their wounds. Lovely.
- it is hateful: everyone who is not an extremist fundamentalist Christian - so that would be what, 95% of the planet? - should either be converted (at gunpoint, if you please) or executed. PC Gamer mag called the game ‘disgusting’.
- you can blow away heathens, Muslims, and Jews. They have clearly ‘ethnic’ names; and you can read the ‘life story’ of each pedestrian. You wouldn’t want to kill a fellow armed extremist Christian, that would be bad for your spiritual points count: you want to kill Mohamed and Chaim. Charming. (When asked about this, the producer of the game said that the game does not endorse prejudice. But "Muslims are not believers in Jesus Christ" -- and thus can't be on Christ's side in the game.”). Sure.
Well in any event, according to Gaming press, the game sucks: it received a 5.9 from IGN and a 3.4 from GameSpot.
Check out the review and discussion on Pam's House Blend.
Merry Christmas everyone. Please teach your kids more interesting stuff than that.
