Christian Jihad: Video Game Edition
Nutty right-wing Christian dominionists are marketing a series of first-person shooter games based on Tim LaHaye’s mega-selling “Left Behind” series. Your mission in Left Behind: Eternal Forces, set in post-apocalyptic New York City, is to hunt down and convert or kill all who resist the dominion of Christ in America: Muslims, Jews, Catholics, gays… you get the idea. (When you kill the infidels, your character yells, “Praise the Lord!”) If you accidentally blow away an innocent party, you lose “spirit points.” But you can get them back by saying a prayer, or by converting more godless Manhattanites.
According to the LA Times:
The game is set in New York City, where the Tribulation Force clashes with the Antichrist’s Global Community Peacekeepers in a tale that makes the United Nations a tool for Satan. Each side attempts to recruit lost souls in the battle for the city. “Eternal Forces” is a so-called real-time strategy game — players act as battlefield generals for their virtual armies, deciding where to place units and when to order attacks or retreats.In the game, Tribulation squads unleash the usual arsenal against the Antichrist: guns, tanks, helicopters. But soldiers lose some of their spirituality every time they kill an opponent and must be bolstered through prayer. The failure to nurture good guys causes their spirit points to drop, leaving them vulnerable to recruitment by the other side.
Wasn't this a video game on the Simpsons? The Flanders kids had it--"Oh, you winged him. Now he's a Unitarian!"