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Christian Videogame Alternatives Explored
Thanks to the TNL forum regulars for pointing to a CBN article discussing the most suitable videogames for Christians (Google cache). The article discusses the "extreme violence, gratuitous sex, and satanic imagery found in many children's video games", and focuses instead on Christian-orientated games such as Ominous Horizons, where "the player takes on the role of a 15th-century Christian who fights demons, but without any blood or gore. The forces of evil - instead of dying - fall to their knees and pray." This N-Lightning-developed game has the player working as a medieval Paladin to return the Gutenberg Bible, which has been stolen by forces of evil, and the developer explains: "..you have a sword of the Spirit.. [that] shoots a burst of light which vaporizes any demonic opponents and the end result is that you know Christ is victorious."
Do something different.
No, I haven't thought of enough different yet, or I would be doing it.
So much to do, so little bandwidth.
--
Try Mozilla
...have a "god mode" cheat.
Isn't that enough advocacy for them?
That game they had at the Flanders' house, where you got to throw bibles at heathens to turn them into respectable suit wearing white men, was a CLASSIC!
Wait, christians auctally use computers AND want to play games on them? What next?
My email addy? should be easy enough.
There and plenty of games in the marketplace, that actually aren't violent and don't require massive killing or demons, or satanism or whatever.
I blew a significant portion of my flight (9 hours) back to the United States last week. playing simcity 3000, and frozen bubble, a classic console stle game that's more addictive than crack cocaine... http://www.frozen-bubble.org/
I would hold out both games as examples of what gaming is and should be all about, Entertaining diversions.
Last time I checked, Christians didn't have any problem reading a book full of violence and gore, so why should videogames be any different?
"This time, the entire forces of the netherworld have overrun Earth. To save her, you must descend into the stygian depths of Hell itself! Battle mightier, nastier, deadlier demons and monsters. Use more powerful weapons."
"Choose from eight powerful spiritual weapons. Each weapon has its own unique use. Maximize your firepower by learning each weaponâ(TM)s abilities...Encounter Satanâ(TM)s minions and banish them back to their evil realm. Evil lurks everywhere you turn....Descend deeper and deeper into the depths of the underworld. Your journey will take you into the very heart of evil, through 18 hand-crafted, highly detailed levels."
One of these is a blurb for Catechumen (one of N'Lightnings games). The other is part of the blurb for Doom II. Frankly there doesn't seem all that much different here, except for the marketing.
Well, at least its better to see people doing something creative, rather than campaigning to get games banned.
-Baz
I'm sure they'd love that one. I bet gore would be allowed as long as the sinner would get to go to hell for all eternity.
Man, if I were a Christian, I'd feel really bad if I lost one of these games. Would God, among others, look down upon me if I lost?
Child: "Shoot, I lost..."
Mother: "That's too bad sweetheart, were you lacking in faith again?"
Child: "No mom! I didn't mean to lose..."
Mother: "Don't play the game unless you can win."
Child: "But..."
Mother: "When you fail in the game, you fail Jesus."
Not to mention, wouldn't some of these games be contradictory to the "Jesus, God, and faith can't loose" attitude that Christianity has?
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Games such as "Catechumen," set in ancient Rome, feature spectacular 3-D graphics and allow the player to take part in a fierce battle between good and evil.
That just sounds like it comes straight out of a press release. Of course, when you're dealing with a genre that includes Bible Adventures, maybe you have to plug it all you can...
Sono koro, bokura wa, sore ga sekai no shinjitsu da to shinjite ita.
What the newsposter describes as 'christian', is actually 'radically conservative christian', but that seems another US-ism... (how should you describe it otherwise?) In Europe - I live in the Netherlands - blood and gore in videogames is much less an issue. Of course bishops don't really like it and Rome will always be conservative, but at least the churches I know don't push their own 'christian-only' separated media.
- Thou shall not act like a camper
- Thou shall not be a sniper
- Thou shall not kill members of your own group
- Thou shall not kill the hostages
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Games can entertain or they can attempt to teach you life lessons, but I can't see them being used for both without one or the other hurting. Let the kids play video games that are actually fun, and let parents teach values on their own time.
Will I be able to go about and conqour pagan civilizations with my metal weapons and trained horses??
Can I Personally slay the dark skins because they dont believe in my one god!?!??
Will I refute all other world religions because I HAVE THE ANSWER??
YES! I've been waiting for an opportunity like this!!
If you're interested in facts I'll tell you what they are and I'll give you sources - Chomsky on The Big Idea
That's telling them Eric!
...for `Christian' videogames. Or `Christian' movies.
I am speaking a Christian-- specifically, an evangelical, relatively conservative Christian.
A faith that cannot deal with death, violence, evil and malice is impratical-- our world is fallen. A faith that does not endeavour to accept sinners is arrogant. And a faith that is impractical and arrogant is not faith-- it is a crutch, a psychological dependence on superiority; it is not transforming, not understanding, not gentle, not strong, not uplifting-- it is not meaningful.
Is there evil in a videogame? Well, then, it is a reflection of our world. Surely there will be truth in the game as well! It is of paramount import that one knows how to recognise and dwell on good, and reject evil. Adults should know how to do this; children should be taught.
It's not about teaching people what to do, or how to act. It's about the meaning of their acts, and of the acts that they witness; though the topic of the day is religion, this is true of most things. In short: adults, behave responsibly; children, learn how to.
(You know, we could do away with a lot of legislation if people just behaved decently (or made the effort to).)
Looks like an engraved steak knife or something. I liked the Doom II double-barrelled shotgun a lot better. How insipid can you get...
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Set Quake 3 on picmip level 20... voilla! No satanic imagery!
As someone who was taking care of a minor who was religiously sensitive I understand some of the issues, and was appaled that most games tout religious content in some way.
It's not even even that the game designers have a message they want to get across, it's purely just for it's shock value.
Most kids aren't shocked by it nowadays, mostly just because they are spiritually desensitized... which IS a bad thing.
I'm not a christian or dogmatic in any way... I view the use of religion in games as fouling a potentially enligtening subject.
http://www.cathar.net/
Score -1: flamebait
how about a game where you travel through europe and gather what you need to fight in the crusades. once there you can kill all arab looking men, women and children! it could be called "grand theft holy lands!"
oh how about one where you apply different methods of torture to various non-believers to extract confessions of blasphamy, demon worship and sin! it could be called "simquisition!"
or "simquisition ii" where you extract confessions of whitchcraft from women and children in the new world!
god, this whole field is wide open!
"preacher-craft" where you wander around giving hate-filled speeches in tent revivals, on radio and tv. you gather wealth and gain health points from the suicides and murders of gays, lesbians, blacks, immigrants and non-believers.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
it's full of SEX, too. All kinds of weird sex, too. You got yer incest, yer whoring, yer homosexual orgies.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
I don't know what it is, but it isn't Christian. Baptists are the only Christian group I can think of which seems to have this fixation, but even they don't have this insanity. I'm certain the people who think this game is a good idea do not read the bible, except for the "safe" sections. I bet they stick little post-it notes everywhere with the "happy" lines, neatly cropped from betwixt two "nasty" lines.
The message in the Bible is written within a world of disease, common prostitution, gorey punishments, and rationalized cruelty. Christ, within this world, sees everything, and learns from it. He makes a choice to counter the cruelty, and teaches others to help. He teaches that the evils pass if you don't reciprocate, or evils will become stronger with vengeful acts. A Christian who understands this message can take enlightened meaning and understanding from any situation, especially when things go wrong. A Christian wants to increase common well-being, decrease common suffering, and teach others to enjoy life and let transient suffering pass on and die.
Under no circumstances does this allow a Christian to insulate themselves with illusions and ignorance. Protecting yourself with magick illusions is a mighty sin.
For example, I had an interesting experience with GTA: Vice City. I was nearly through the book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" when I started playing it. The game was nearly painful because I had no options to do anything except the way the story required. From reading the book, every situation I entered I could think of ways to improve the situation, but the character always took the violent route. The characters in Vice City were fleshed out, and the world seemed real. So, when I was or wasn't playing the game, I was thinking of ways to improve my character's situation by improving the situations around him. Your character in VC is such a brilliant and driven fuckup, it's hard not to think of better ways to go about everything. And, if nothing else, you're slightly more mentally and emotionally prepared to encounter such backwards situations, even if they don't involve gunfire.
Whatever these "Christians" are, they want to pretend bad things don't happen. That marks them as distinctly un-Christ-like.
I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.
More people have been killed in the name of God than in GTA:Vice City.
Has anyone ever heard of "The Crusades".....actually that might make a good game.
I believe the real link is: here.
Back to Super 3D Noah's Ark for me.
Twelve fingers or one, its how you play. ~Gattaca (Vincent)
I thought I had an appetite for destruction, but all I really wanted was a club sandwich. --Homer J.
It's not mostly about the amount of violence and sex in the game, it's about the message which the game tries to send. The situation is very much the same as with books- Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov depicts a world with plenty of violence and sex but sends a strong message of faith. As plenty of others have pointed out, the Bible is the same way. There are plenty of books with little or no violence or sex which nevertheless broadcast a message of nihilism, selfishness, and immorality.
:)
As far as I can tell, these games don't really send any message at all (unless it's that missionary work, even among demons, is ridiculously easy, just point and zap), much less one of true faith. If you're going to be playing a FPS which is designed not to send any message, you might as well enjoy it and have it be Serious Sam (with the 'hippie gore' option turned on if you prefer lower levels of blood, etc)
video game, eh? forces of evil, eh? master sword, eh?
1. It's a First Person Shooter.
2. It has great demonic imagery to show on talk shows and sensationalist news reports.
3. It is very well known.
Doom is the game that gets the bad press. (Note: Both games are cool, I would've thought so even back when I was a practicing Catholic.) Really, if Jack Chick made a game, would it be that different than Doom. (Haw, haw!)
On the other hand, all Color Dreams has to do is find Jesus, slightly retool Menace Beach and they have a game they can sell in Christian bookstores Sunday Funday
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
WOW. i thought the lowest point was achieved, but there is always somebody to bring you a shovel... it's really something non violent: grab your mighty swork and kill every hellrisen creature. that would make doom a christian game, hey i go to hell and kill daemons. come on!!! or ROTT: let's kill the evil members of a diabolical sect! so, what would be the next christian game? "1426 ad: the spanish inquisition"? "1037 ad: the crusade"? fvckin morons... seriously! how about "50 ad: christians vs. lions"? all christian non-violent games...
...Better not name it "*-craft" or you're likely to get shut down by Blizzard.
-z-
-z-
1) Thou shalt not kill. ...
n) Thou shalt play Pong(tm).
And this is some corny shit. Back to Quake3.
...they'll have a game out where you play a Knight Templar in the Crusades, trekking toward the Holy Land to free it from Muslim oppression but instead stopping in Constantinople to sack and loot the place.
I need to register that account to combat the evil hordes of Satan posing as frist postryers.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Simquisition should be a real word
Why can't good or tame video games exist on their own? Why do they have to be Christian to be nonviolent? It seems like Christian means instant good, and if we look at its sullied past (and present, GW) it really isn't. And what are violent video games? Pagan? Why are blood and gore so completely against specifically christian morals. They're against normal morals as well, but we realize it's just a freakin' game!
Oh Jesus ... /me walks away very quickly
This reminds me of War in heaven.
The request cannot be processed while the Web site is restarting.
Where's your God now, eh?
That's both funny and Insightful
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
The Roman Catholic church has a lot to answer for. As for pentacostals - while I don't like that group much I don't understand your reference to their desire for suicide and murder of gays, lesbians, etc?
That part is quite obviously flamebait. Pentacostals want the conversion of those people, not their death. As for blacks and immigrants that sounds outrageous, though I guess I can imagine it happening in America some time earlier. But you can't stain the name of a group for the actions of a minority in a fixed time. You would find few/no pentacostals today that reject blacks/immigrants.
A standard commentary on this is that the 'little children' is a definite KJV mistranslation, and that the people who came to him were probably adolescent boys who had been paid to bring water to sustain Jericho while the spring there was bitter (salty; the story is recounted in the four verses immediately previous to the passage you quoted, v 19-22; Jericho is below sea level near the Dead Sea and thus it wouldn't be too strange for salt water to end up in their water table). Having been deprived of their livelihood by Elisha when he healed the spring and thus eliminated the need for bringing fresh water into the city, they were outside the city jeering Elisha as he left, waiting until he came in range that they could stone him.
I think the commentary is Talmudic and old enough that it quite possibly in some form predated the compilation of 2 Kings. I could be wrong, my memory isn't fantastic.
Spiritual Warfare, an actually fun little NES gamethat was later ported to SNES and PC. I think I still have the 3.5" floppy for it.
I hit this article hoping to see a discussion of "different drummer" type games with different and more interesting playmechanics than "obtain bigger weapon, shoot monster/other player." (Seriously, I liked Doom and Duke3D a lot, but by Quake III I was wondering if there was ANYTHING else to play anymore....)
Instead I got to relive for a moment that dark period of the 80's when born again failed record execs came around to the Catholic schools passing the hat and suggesting we all burn our "satanic" records and buy some new ones that sounded superficially the same, but with awful songwriting and a message from Jesus. Records by bands like Stryper.
Yes, that's right, these videogames are the 21st century version of Stryper. Rock on, Christian soldiers....
God & Faith are believing in the otherwise unbelievable simply because society dictates that is *right*.
All species on a boat! lol...
We're all decended from Adam & Eve (btw women are evil otherwise we'd still be the lovely garden). Sounds like Arkansas to me.
Religion is the fear of the unknown personified by allowing people to buy their way to some groovie place in the sky. BTW Jesus was white and he traveled to America to chat with the American Indians too!
If a person tried to sell this shitty writing in any other way besides "religion" people would see right through it. Unfortunately most people cannot accept that they are worthless in the grand scheme of things without becoming a depressed individual.
In God We Trust!
I must say, as a born again Christian (as in Christian by choice and not because my relatives are) these games paint a very bad picture for Christians in general. I agree with another poster that this must be because of an untapped market because no real Christian developement team would sink to such lows by choice. It is humilating to thing somebody would expect anybody to buy these games. Anyway, just because one is a Christian does not mean that all other games are off limits. In fact, my favorite games are Continuum and Unreal Tournament 2003, which i enjoy very much for the action/gameplay. I guess I should have supected somebody would come along and do this... its a shame.
I am not entirely sure of this, but wasn't the Gutenberg bible the first printed (i e mass produced) bible? Why not guard one of the unique bibles instead?
Is a small company I founded. We're current working on these titles:
Zoraster: the return of Zarathrustra! Fight heathens, greeks, and Muslims in this action-packed adventure. 32 levels of puzzle solving fun. Don't let them call you the Jesus of Persia anymore!
Quest for National Autonomy: Suicide Bombing as last resort. Kabloom you go in this multi-cultural tale of political infighting and intrigue. Recruit men, women, and children to fight the holy fight. (virgin cut scene only available in Europe)
Children's Crusade: 11-14 year olds run off to the middle east to fight the good fight. Game impossible to win.
Culture War: bring Christ back to America. Micromanage conservative pundits and media outlets to push abstinace, cover-up pedophilia, push pro-corporate views, and support the war on drugs. There is also no way to win this game.
Greek Gods: getting it on! (adult title only) Turn into an ox and pick up chicks. Think Leisure Suit Larry, but with lightning bolts!
Lemmings IX: Janists strike back! Control a Janist who must shoo all lemmings trying to jump over a cliff into safety. Must not step on any bugs using holy broom. Fun for the whole family!
Caste Attack: Brahmins vs. Shudras. Play a Brahmin, a chosen superior man and punish the Shudras untouchables when they get uppity. Whips, chains, and bonus level where police don't bother investigating a shudra murder.
Man, Rockstar has nothing on us.
Should be...
Score:-1, Fire/Brimstone Worthy
It's hard to tell if thats a joke or your insane
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Seriously this game reminds me every day that Religion has caused far more suffering than it has ever prevented
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Well we all know how Holy the 15th-century Christian was. Once again Christians making people who follow Jesus' teachings look like assholes. Go figure.
I say make the games, more power to 'em. Just don't make them full of suck. Contrary to popular media opinion, violence, gore, and sexual imagery are the ingredients for a bestselling game. Unfortunately the christian creative community doesn't have such a good track record in the "not suck" arena. Remember "Bible Adventures" on NES? Or how about christian "rock". You'd think that if these guys had the power of God behind them, they'd play some kick ass tunes. But oh how this is not the case....
Right, dumb question: Name 5 popular games out there that you consider would be suitable for a ten-year-old, if only it wasn't for that darned evil Satanic message.
Doom? In the early, good levels, where you don't get the cheesy inverted crosses, you're mostly shooting a bunch of guys with machine guns, watching their blood spray everywhere. Hardly suitable for kids anyway, is it?
You see, most of the really good games of the last couple of years (I'm talking the likes of Mario, Frequency, Zelda, Gran Tourismo 3, Project Gotham, Amped, Super Monkey Ball and Ikaruga to pick a random personal 8) are fine for kids. The rest (say Halo and Vice City to round out a top ten) are so violent and clearly aimed at adults that quibbling about "Christian themes" seems the least thing Christians, or any responsible parent, should be worrying about.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
I already replied to this, but I just remembered something. The Gutenberg Bible wasn't a vernacular version of the Bible, but rather a Latin (and Catholic) edition.
Here's a page on the Gutenberg Bible, including an image of one of the pages, in which you can see it's in Latin.
Without really getting into a re-cap of several centuries of military and political history, I'd like to point out that these Muslim invaders reached the gates of Paris around 700 AD, and your glib stereotype of Christian oppression is propagated only by the undereducated or American public schools, which one might argue is an equivalence set. As long as we are going to get a smidge technical, let's turn to the Muslim holy book, the Q'uran: The Prophet said, "Before long, you the Arabs will conquer many countries and cities. Qazvin, shall be one of such places. The person who takes part in that battle for forty nights or forty days, will be given a gold pillar in paradise encrusted with jades and rubies. He will enjoy residing in a palace, having seventy thousand gates, and each gate shall be attended by a houri (virgin girl for sex) and his wife." (Ibn-E-Majah, Vol. 2, p. 169) I'm sure there's some relevant Nietsche quote that could fit in here nicely about the evils of religion, but I won't honor his memory. I think the lesson overall is that religion has been central to the themes of many wars, but that with the fall of effective monarchy (except Thailand) where a "protector of the faith" king rules the land outright, our more contemporary governments, where the government does not control the religion, and its leadership is chosen by the masses, have given us many years of relatively peaceful times. Incidentally, Thomas Jefferson's discussion of separation between church and state is how I have just said, and is not bilateral, as the ACLU puts it, but then, if you haven't read up on the history of the Middle Ages, you haven't even heard of the Federalist Papers, much less investigated the validity of this "new doctrine" of 21st century atheist lawyers. On the topic of video games, Big Idea Productions has multiple titles which are Christian-based. Sure, no ego-shooters, but the Mystery of Veggie Island is an excellent Christian title. Honestly, the lessons within that game are common to just good upbringing, they make no mention of specific theological distinctions, and teach the value of sharing and helping others. As for door-to-door evangelism, I also find it annoying when a JW (Jehovah's Witness) or Mormon comes and starts a discussion with me, finds out I'm a Christian, yet still pursues to share the "doom and freaking gloom" message of end times, naively expecting I'm unread on the subject, and easily "scared" into going to a Kingdom Hall with them. I can't imagine how that sells to an atheist. There are more loving, personal ways to invite people to attend church, and consider a new life. They don't translate to action video games, however. It is my hope, MacDaddy357, that you view this response as an invitation to explore the true history behind your views of the Crusades. Truly, you will find a far kinder balance of events than your perception has offered.
I wonder if this is for the kids that have to play w/ Jesus action figures.
Interesting that this post came out on a Sunday, when most (or many) Christians wouldn't be reading /., and thus wouldn't be around to contribute to the discussion until it was "old news".
If Christians want to make video games for themselves, more power to them, but I doubt any of us need to pay them any attention unless the games are actually worth playing.
Personally it seems like some pretty serious syncretism. If you're that serious about your faith to buy some cheezy Christian-themed video game, why not have the kids turn off the computer and pray for *real*, and actually do something in the world?