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Thursday, August 17, 2006

Left Behind Versus Grand Theft Auto

This is funny. Right from the creator of Left Behind: Eternal Forces:

"If you have two games and one has a good theme and one has a bad theme, people are generally going to reach for the one with the good theme," he said.

The Grand Theft Auto games are well-designed but have a bad theme, in his view. Lyndon intends for the Left Behind games (follow-ups to Eternal Forces are already in the works) to contain a religious theme that is "not preachy or dogmatic."

An early version of Eternal Forces has already won respect in write-ups on gamer Web sites. Until now, religion-oriented video games have tended to be relatively weak efforts -- far from cutting-edge and more the sort of lame thing Ned Flanders's kids might play on "The Simpsons."
-- Fire and Brimstone, Guns and Ammo

Right ... that "good theme" being the end of the world and utter annihilation of all non-believers. That's not preachy at all. In other words, a great theme for American ubervangelists ... not so much for the gays. Hookers, at least, get shot equally.

And I don't know what early version the Post is talking about here. It's been routinely panned by most gaming sites as little more than religious propaganda propped up on Starcraft's dying frame.




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2 comments:

Patrick said...

'"It doesn't say who you pray to," he said.'

The implication that you should be praying to ANYTHING in particular is whats problematic, particularly in the context that is only fiction to the rules of kill or be killed on an RTS scale.

I'm making a game that deals with religion from a rather opposite perspective, as you may know.

Josh said...

For one thing - that URL doesn't resolve.

For a second thing, this is one of the earliest posts I ever made on Left Behind. Not that my opinion has changed much, but at least follow up to the point where we had discussions with players of the game.