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Tuesday

"Left Behind" Video Game

That's right! If there's fear-induced money to be made, you can be sure that Jenkins and LaHaye will go for it...

As Plain Truth Ministries writes...

Set in post-Rapture New York City, the "Tribulation Force" (now repentant left-behinders whose loved-ones have already been taken to heaven) battles the Antichrist's UN-based Global Community Peacekeepers. Multiple players can decide whether they want to play the role of Antichrist or Christian. When the good-guy soldiers blow away a bad guy, they say "Praise the Lord," yet they still lose some spirituality points, which must be replenished by prayer. Losing too many points may cause a player to go over to the dark side. Demons help the villains, while angels help the faithful. The game is replete with magical scripture passages and inspirational music.

Game description
Wage a war of apocalyptic proportions in LEFT BEHIND: Eternal Forces - a real-time strategy game based upon the best-selling LEFT BEHIND book series created by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.

Join the ultimate fight of Good against Evil, commanding Tribulation Forces or the Global Community Peacekeepers, and uncover the truth about the worldwide disappearances!

  • Lead the Tribulation Force from the book series , including Rayford, Chloe, Buck and Bruce against Nicolae Carpathia – the AntiChrist
  • Conduct physical & spiritual warfare : using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world.
  • Recover ancient scriptures and witness spectacular Angelic and Demonic activity as a direct consequence of your choices.
  • Command your forces through intense battles across a breathtaking, authentic depiction of New York City
  • Control more than 30 units types - from Prayer Warrior and Hellraiser to Spies, Special Forces and Battle Tanks!
  • Enjoy a robust single player experience across dozens of New York City maps in Story Mode – fighting in China Town , SoHo , Uptown and more!
  • Play multiplayer games as Tribulation Force or the AntiChrist's Global Community Peacekeepers with up to eight players via LAN or over the internet!

Gives new meaning to the question: "Who Would Jesus Assassinate?"

please read more about my thoughts on the evolution of Christianity at http://emergingchristianity.blogspot.com

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, brother! YUCK! Makes me wanna puke. Adele

Anonymous said...

Like most RTS games on the PC that don't have the word "craft" in the title, Left Behind needs a gimmick to survive. Left Behind has that gimmick (being all religious and stuff), but unfortunately, not much of it actually works in the game.

The biggest problem with this RTS is the balance between the Jesus patrol and the antichrist legion. You would think for playability the developers would try to give each side equal yet different abilities in order to foster a good online experience.

Sadly, this is not the case. The "good" side's infantry has more range, their 1st Tech tree vehicles have more armor and their 3rd tree ultimate units are just straight cheese. The "Power of God" ability is stupid and should have been removed from online play entirely.

Conversely, the "evil" side's units do more damage, but the ratio of damage dealt to armor provided is weak as hell (ha!). Any serious multiplayer skirmishes leave the player who must play "evil" at a serious disadvantage.

It's almost as if the producers of the title didn't want the power of evil to be playable for fear of losing christians over a $4 video game they bought in the Target bargain bin.

The unit selection is a slap in the face to anyone who has ever played the master game of the genre "Starcraft." Every unit is blantantly stolen from it. The worst part is, while they stole the units themselves, they didn't steal the excellently balanced statistics from Starcraft. So you have all the same units that the developer thought they could "improve" on for some reason. Yeah... Good call. Why don't you "improve" the units to the most balanced and popular RTS of all time. Idiots... This is like some company releasing a platforming game called "Super Pistacio Brothers." and with the lead character "Bario," instead of stomping on enemies and getting powerups, he just sucks ass and does nothing.

The unit models are terrible. This game looks like it was designed by an autistic kid who works at a Wal-Mart. The units seem to have two animation poses. Standing still, and running. The ensuing animation looks as if every unit is involved in some sort of schenanigans on "The Benny Hill Show."

The syrupy sweet bible passages thrown in "for good measure" along the way do little to foster any kind of relationship with God, but rather makes the player irate and wish they could turn it off in the game options.

All in all, this is a sad game looking to cash in on a sad franchise. With the exception of giving Kirk Cameron more money to spend on hookers and blow, nothing good has come out of this series.

If you are a parent who wants their child to play video games AND worship God, might I recommend buying him/her Starcraft, and then taking him to church on Sunday. You can remember two things right?

SJR said...

This statement is posted from an employee of Left Behind Games on behalf of Troy Lyndon, our Chief Executive Officer.

There has been in incredible amount of MISINFORMATION published in the media and in online blogs here and elsewhere.

Pacifist Christians and other groups are taking the game material out of context to support their own causes. There is NO “killing in the name of God” and NO “convert or die”. There are NO “negative portrayals of Muslims” and there are NO “points for killing”.

Please play the game demo for yourself (to at least level 5 of 40) to get an accurate perspective, or listen to what CREDIBLE unbiased experts are saying after reviewing the game at www.leftbehindgames.com/pages/controversy.htm

Then, we’d love to hear your feedback as an informed player.

The reality is that we’re receiving reports everyday of how this game is positively affecting lives by all who play it.

Thank you for taking the time to be a responsible blogger.