Christian Videogames

[CyborgKin]

Rehashing a topic I started on FJshelter, What is the worst Christian Videogame? 

Some may remember games like the Wolfenstein-reskin Super 3D Noah, or the Zeldaesque Spiritual Warfare, but I think the worse contender so far in the category of Christian Videogames has to be Prayer Warriors. Because nothing gets the message 'drugs kill' across better than glowing ambulatory test-tubes with guns. Also it's terribly made, terribly designed, lazy, awful, and just horribly bad in every respect. And costs money.

Gameplay video with 'appropriate commentary':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWC-n73G6i8

Can anyone beat this? Or do you have any other notable related memories?

Oh and what (if any) videogames might various fundies every be allowed to play? I remember hearing that the Botkins were allowed to play some kind of military game, turned up to the highest difficulty/realism. Once. Only until their character died. Which was basically a few seconds. Just to prove how quickly people die in war.

 (Sorry for the formatting.  That's what happens when you copypaste from another site, and there's not an easy way to remove formatting and I really don't want to manually edit the html source a paragraph at a time.)

 

In response to comments on the original thread, why is the existence of Christian videogames such a surprise?  There's Christian everything else.  And there's every other type of videogame.

And not all of them are utterly terrible.  Not quite all.  A few are only slightly terrible.

[quiversR4hunting]

I think the shock comes to - why make them Christian? There are so many video games that are for learning (leap stuff, where in the world Carmen sandiago, etc) and fun (Mario cart, pac man, wii, etc) - why make one specifically Christian? Plus playing some kind of military game would (I assume) involve killing, how are they making it a Christian thing to do when killing is against the 10 commandments? And if they are killing for Jesus, doesn't that make them playing a came like the Crusades (flirting pretty close to evil Catholics!). Kind of like the Christian films, I image the video games being awful which doesn't make sense because there are Christians in all professions so why do Christian entertainment companies suck at producing high quality stuff? They need to stop trying to produce it as a ministry and treating it as a career to make money and produce high quality entertainment. Another point, if many of us haven't heard of them, they obviously didn't make it big.

I find people labeling things as a "Christian" this or that usually ridiculous. In my area we had a Christian car company. Guess what, the sales people were still sales people even though they may have had prayer time every morning as a company. We had a Christian coffee shop and again, why labeled like that? I am sure you can go to starbucks or the local coffee house and have a prayer meeting and shoot the owners may already be Christian! (the coffee house and the care company are both bankrupt- back to treating it like a ministry instead of a career) I just find all the labels of in your face "we are Christian" extremely eye rolling.  

that is my 2 cents on why the surprise of Christian videogames back to the discussion of actual Christian video games.

[EmiGirl]

I remember there was a Left Behind game back in the day. I never played it because it looked incredibly horrible.

[IreneIssh]

This thread reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Bart and the Flanders kids play "Billy Graham's Bible Blaster" where you have to convert the heathens by throwing bibles at them 

I'm going to have to see if I can find emulator versions of some of these games 

[CyborgKin]

@quiversR4hunting

Yes, labeling things as Christian- is generally pretty ridiculous and counterproductive.  But it's common enough that it shouldn't really be a shock that people do it with videogames too.  I don't think I've seen one with outright killing of humans though.  Most are really 'edutainment' type games.  Or they involve fighting demons (e.g. Catechumen).  Or instead of killing people you convert them.  Which when you think about it, is even more on the nose.  Particularly in Spiritual Warfare, in which you convert people by pelting them with fruit (of the Spirit).  

 

Part of the problem with Christians making or doing "Christian X", is that they hope tacking Christian on the beginning will make up for them not actually being any good at, or knowing much about, whatever X is.

[nickelodeon]

There were a lot of Christian DOS games back in the 90s. Archive.org has preserved a lot of them in its initiative to back up ye olde computer software-- Bible Builder and some other nostalgic, frequently awful and stultifying, religious games are there.

One that I really dug was Captain Bible In The Dome Of Darkness, about this superhero who travels through dungeons fighting monsters to save people enslaved to sin-- or very sinful cyborgs, at least. The conceit was that the monsters will tell you "lies" (eg, "God didn't create the world in seven days" or "stealing RULES") and then you find a Bible verse that contradicts this statement, and by doing this you'll memorize a lot of Bible verses. You also stab the monsters with an awesome sword. This was one of the reasons that kids whose only options were Captain Bible and Bible Builder would go with the Cap every time. There were awesome monsters who bled and exploded, scenes where people got tortured, and (admittedly) very good graphics! Wow! Just like the real video games that we only get to play when we visit our public school friends!

[purple_summer]

This was one I played when I was younger, aptly titled "The Bible Game" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XM3iVxBgX0

I heard of others but I wasn't enough into gaming to actually play most of them.

[heidi]

One that I really dug was Captain Bible In The Dome Of Darkness, about this superhero who travels through dungeons fighting monsters to save people enslaved to sin-- or very sinful cyborgs, at least. The conceit was that the monsters will tell you "lies" (eg, "God didn't create the world in seven days" or "stealing RULES") and then you find a Bible verse that contradicts this statement, and by doing this you'll memorize a lot of Bible verses. You also stab the monsters with an awesome sword. This was one of the reasons that kids whose only options were Captain Bible and Bible Builder would go with the Cap every time. There were awesome monsters who bled and exploded, scenes where people got tortured, and (admittedly) very good graphics! Wow! Just like the real video games that we only get to play when we visit our public school friends!

We had this video game growing up (I think that our cousins gave it to us?) and it was the only video game we had for a long time. My brother and I played the heck out of it. It was pretty entertaining.

[JoyfullyUnavailable]

This thread reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Bart and the Flanders kids play "Billy Graham's Bible Blaster" where you have to convert the heathens by throwing bibles at them 

I'm going to have to see if I can find emulator versions of some of these games 

Diddily! I thought of the same thing. Right away this classic line went through my head:

"Got Him! - No you just winged him and made him a Unitarian." 

The episode was called Alone Again, Natura-diddily and it was classic.

[AmazonGrace]

The Old Testament would make an awesome videogame with lots of exciting quests and minigames like catching animals and sacrificing them,  dragging young men  to the city gates and stoning them, picking out which ladies are unclean and cannot be touched, destroying cities and raping virgins. 

 Samuel 15:3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

^{Deuteronomy 21: 18} If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:  ¹⁹ Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; ²⁰ And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. ²¹ And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

NUMBERS 31:17-18 God commanded Moses to kill all of the male Midianite children and "kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."

[MatthewDuggar]

What was the online game called that the Duggars endorsed?  It had something to do with being a missionary in Africa I believe....

[CyborgKin]

Diddily! I thought of the same thing. Right away this classic line went through my head:

"Got Him! - No you just winged him and made him a Unitarian." 

The episode was called Alone Again, Natura-diddily and it was classic.

You can basically do that with fruit in this game http://game-oldies.com/play-online/spiritual-warfare-sega-genesis

[iweartanktops]

@CyborgKin you're joking about pelting with fruit (of the spirit), right? 

My fiancé is in the gaming industry (Tomb Raider!) and I'm quite familiar with many games. I almost spit out my drink when I read your post! 

[Trynn]

Gosh, in our family christian video games just meant things like, games without violence or sex. Like that one where yiu have a virtual dog you feed, or reader rabbit. Orly's draw a story. You know, kids stuff.

Unless it was sabbath, then they meant veggie tales.

[iweartanktops]

@Trynn same with us! Tetris, Mario, duck hunt, etc. Those were all fine. Some of these sound down right ridiculous and silly! 

[CyborgKin]

@CyborgKin you're joking about pelting with fruit (of the spirit), right? 

My fiancé is in the gaming industry (Tomb Raider!) and I'm quite familiar with many games. I almost spit out my drink when I read your post! 

Game design was my favourite class at university

 

But no, I'm not joking.

 

 

[iweartanktops]

@CyborgKin I'm speechless. I can't wait to show my future headship! 

[HereticHick]

What was the online game called that the Duggars endorsed?  It had something to do with being a missionary in Africa I believe....

MakaziVille! You will find plenty of discussion about it on FJ.

 

http://blog.games.com/2011/11/29/duggars-makaziville-game/

MakaziVille: The Duggars' bizarre, possibly racist take on mission work

[Trynn]

Is it available for iPhone? If so, I might feel like doing more procrastinating....

[CyborgKin]

If anyone wants to do some procrastinating, the video linked in the OP may help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWC-n73G6i8

I can't think of a game that beats the terribleness of Prayer Warriors.  I really hope there isn't one.

[iweartanktops]

I'll have to watch during nap time. @CyborgKin I wonder if it's as bad as the "Bible Man" videos! I'll see if I can find a YouTube video of it. 

[Trynn]

Oh god, bible man... I wrote up a bit about that on my blog..... About how ridiculous it was.