@LuppyLuptonium:

Damn straight. It's far too often that Christians are "represented" by the (admittedly very) vocal minority.

Then you have douchebags like Jack Thompson who is about as non-Christian as you can get, prancing around pretending to be doing things in the name of Christian values. Not to mention the volume of Politicians who play lip service to God while taking bribes and doing anything to get re-elected.

tzaketh

I'd figure it'll be like that CocaCola ad GTA spoof.

+ Watch video

judacris

@Ahsayuni: You are about to be jumped by, like, 50 grammar fanatics. you know this, right?

rianfrost

@Rika Aiuchi is SeXXXy:

power of christ compels you!

HueyFreeman

I liked his take on GTA though...

"Tom Bean, CEO of Digital Praise: There are a number of games that are out in the marketplace, and some of them have been derided for their content as being inappropriate for kids or inappropriate in general. And the thing that people don't readily recognize is that some of these games are popular and are successful because they're really fun; people have sometimes gotten distracted from the fun of a game by some of the content that's in it."

That is actual sanity. I man yes the man is head of a studio that makes Christian themed games, but rather than admonish other games, trying to incite the holy wrath of God... Rather inappropriatly at that (but all too common), he actually "Get's it"

I wish that we could see more people like this speaking up from the Christian community, or heck, even the general populace.

LuppyLuptonium

@Ahsayuni:
in that case you can post less too.

I'M ON FIRE TODAY

ZinkO: preferred the old theme AND comment system

Door to door evangelists! Where the ends justify the means! I can't think of a catchy name, but you justify the theft of earthly possesions by the saving of souls. And to get rid of your stars from your sins, you pop into a church, and give confession. Yeah, it's totally do-able. Whether it ought to be done is another matter, but yeah, you could totally throw Christian values at GTA mechanics.

AllegraStreit

I could care less, to be honest

Ahsayuni

@Rika Aiuchi is SeXXXy: honestly, the game wouldnt star jesus as the player charcter, that would be considered disrespectful, If anything i'd prefer a "beyond good and evil" style futuristic world setting would set a contrast between the humanising effect of spirituality vurses the dulling effects of mechanization and materialism.

rianfrost

@EnigmaNemesis: You know the Pope is a baller.

Imagine doing a GTA mission in the pope mobile... That would be so awesome. Since you can probably put a turret on that top and shoot out glowing balls of holiness and crosses to impale evil

Rika Aiuchi is SeXXXy

Christian GTA seems unlikely. A Christian sandbox game is something different. Play as Jesus, going around performing miracles, chasing people down and saying stuff like "devil be gone and face palming people" and hitting devils with crosses on the tops of churches all while escaping on a horse towards your main base of operations.

Rika Aiuchi is SeXXXy

@rianfrost: heh in retrospect i repeted the "poor and sick" thing, but basicly it fits, a bunch of mini altruism quests on both a personal and larger level would kick butt.

rianfrost

Man, if they ever do make a GTA game, it definately should be about Jesus. Inciting public unrest, tax evasion, hanging with prostitutes, alcohol making, giving alcohol to minors, demolishing temples...

BlinkinPark182

gta no, sandbox, oh heck yeah. If anything, a christian sandbox game would be the BEST kind of christian game, and the funny thing is, its shown by gta. One cornerstone of any modern christian's(as well as jew, hindu, muslim, wiccan and et cetera) life is looking at the world and seeing what places God is calling you to give witness by good deeds. Gta has side missions totally unrelated to the central narriative that allow you to flesh out exactly what kind of person your avatar is in the larger game world. Make the focus finding inventive ways to resolve conflicts, help the poor and the sick, rally an uncaring government to apply its collective might to combat greater social ills like poverty and the uninsured sick(maybe through a phtographer style game, ala beyond good and evil) and basicly freely seek out more oppertunities to do good in an uncareing world. Comabt would be a problem, but fighting evil spirits, machines, or some form of "abomination" type enemy(maybe cuthulu mythos based?) could circumvent the problem. So yeah its a great idea and its a shame most studios dont have the cash to pony up for such an endeavor, because id buy it launch day.

rianfrost

@HueyFreeman:

Nope, still says the more expensive vehicle.

EnigmaNemesis

Killing to be replaced with judging.

SG_Mahonay

@Rob Phelps: Haha, inorite? Hey, I'm up for senseless violence as much as the next guy, but something about GTA has always been too mean-spirited for me to enjoy it.

Comatose Turtle

I think he has@EnigmaNemesis:
I think he has a Volkswagen Toureag now?
[en.wikipedia.org]

HueyFreeman

This idea reminds me of a Simpsons episode where bart was playing Bible blaster I think, in a sandbox Christianity game you'd basically be kinda acting like Jehovah witness's trying to convert the non believers and maybe stopping crime through scripture.

Neo-Senku: The World's Finest Pervert

@crabperson:
well played, sir. you are truly a formidable opponent.

ZinkO: preferred the old theme AND comment system

@Comatose Turtle: You, sir, are BORING.

Rob Phelps

Pope rolls a Mercedes eh?

EnigmaNemesis

@Does Not Equal (ダズノット): Sir, I will take fancy words over lolcatz and people writing like they were charged per letter any day. So in that sense, good work remanance! A suggestion on your next post, go with something like "inaugural."

psycoking

Haha... as a Christian, the thing just never held much appeal to me. I've played most of them, but shrugged them off pretty quickly. I mean, you go around committing crimes and killing people and evading police officers... all things I never really wanted to do in the first place, so the appeal is just lost on me. I don't see off-hand what you could do to the formula to make it appeal to Christians, since it's pretty much just guilty pleasure fulfilment.

Actually, when I played GTA4 I always drove like a kind and cautious citizen and didn't steal cars unless absolutely necessary. I was impressed that you could actually do that in this one... But I imagine my friends never would have stuck around watching me play so slowly, haha.

Comatose Turtle

Would it be like that Coca-Cola Super Bowl commercial from a couple of years ago, where the GTA-styled guy walked down the street menacingly, then helped out the community while ending in a big musical number?

BMO

@Does Not Equal (ダズノット): i see what youre doing with "evolved" there, and i must say, might not sit well with this clientele.

@crabperson: ok, Home was a better shot that Saints Row 2, i concede.

TheIrishNinja

@ZinkO: preferred the old theme AND comment system: OH NO YOU DI-INT

TheIrishNinja

@Hunter217: No, hold on there...

Games have been built on mechanics that are very transferable. I don't see how something like an open world game based on goal oriented missions can't be used to tell a story completely different then the one it's telling. In this particular case, it's GTA... It could be crackdown, prototype, infamous.

Look at mirrors edge shaking off the perception that an First person perspective game being about shooting people. Our perceptions are being governed by strong archetypes that seem to be forcing games to follow cookie-cutter design practices. Subtle shifts and extreme shifts in paradigm like the one being visited by this story are the kinds of disruptions required to break away from the existing archetypes... or in the very least, create new ones.

okenny :) ...building bridges (to hide under)

@TheIrishNinja: It's called Home, and frankly, its nothing amazing or worth buying.

On a side note couldn't a third party (the Church) rented out a Home space and made a virtual church space? No, no, that's a bad idea...

crabperson

An Abortion Clinic is Setting up shop in ChinaTown. Go Get some Firebombs from Bishop Lenny and teach those sinners about Pro-Life!

Nside

This sounds almost like a tv commercial found inside an apartment in GTA:IV. I wonder how they are going to do the whole driving thing. If you go outside your lane a cop pulls you over and gives a warning?

Quicksilver4648

@TheIrishNinja: "Grand Friend City: Witnessing Evolved"

Does Not Equal (ダズノット)

@TheIrishNinja:
We could call it Saints Row 2.

OH SNAP

ZinkO: preferred the old theme AND comment system

uh. no. they could make a christian final fantasy though.
they could keep the game, but just call the game "Godliness" loooooool i made a lame funny.

thedarkmarc

The popemobile needs to be in the next GTA. It would be a SIN not to have it.

HAHAHAHA do you see what I did there? Comic genius my friends, comic genius.

ZeroBlade

@psycoking: haha, we were on the same page here.

TheIrishNinja

the closest thing i can think of is, uh...something crusade-like from the Assassin's Creed engine, which could be fun, but you know, not exactly the period of time the church would most like to embellish.

couldnt they just take out the violent bits of GTA IV and have you run around hanging with friends that call you all day? that'd be uh, that'd be something.

TheIrishNinja

@remanance: Isn't that a fancy way of saying "in before?"

Does Not Equal (ダズノット)

"Crusades-style"? Didn't Ubisoft come out with that game already? Assassin's something or other? Hmm... I guess this game would have to be from the other point of view thout...

Crusader's Creed....

Ooooh catchy name, what with the alliteration and all.

psycoking

I can see it now...

"Hey Jesus, there are some bums setting up shop in the temple courts. Go to Ammunation and stock up on some cords, flip a couple tables and show those jabronees you mean business..."

half-beast

Oh man.... Tense Religious debates cometh. T_T

remanance

Guitar hero = yes
gta = toxic

Hunter217

@okenny :) ...building bridges (to hide under): All valid points. Do I expect anybody involved in the development of 'Christian pop culture' to exert any amount of innovation or creativity to truly produce something new and exciting?

Sadly, not, judging from the largely pandering, cynical, low-grade output these companies generate.

bakana

Crusades are always fun. I mean it's totally okay to kill a bunch of minorities because your god willed it right?

J0hnny-Kickass

@Comatose Turtle:

I'm a Christian as well-- and not a guy who just says he's Christian because his parents were. A real, honest to god, bible-thumping Christian. Christadelphian, to be precise. And that involves adult baptism, to give you an idea of how off the wall Christian I am.

But damn if it isn't fun to be able to bust out the window of your car and spray down the guy who just rear-ended you with an Uzi. Get 5 stars, wait to get swarmed by cops, drop a grenade out the window, and high tail it out of there, looking out the window behind you and firing indiscriminately as they're thrown fifty feet in the air by an unrealistic explosion.

And if you're not into the random violence, GTA4, if you do nothing but follow the storyline, is actually a very moralistic tale. Everything nasty done has consequences, no one's a good person, not even the cops, and the whole world starts to fall apart. Unlike what is touted by JTs of the world, you're not rewarded for being an asshole. The whole story is something of a tragedy.

Needless to say, I loved it. And I love Jesus. Time Paradox?

tzaketh

Reading the article linked, the guy from Digital Praise seems pretty on-the-level. A sharp cat, if not the most original. So with that in mind, I'd expect for us to someday see a sandbox game from these guys. Maybe not an overtly Christian game, probably not a game that attempts to proselytize. I'd expect it to be more focused on performing good deeds and spreading the good word in the game, as opposed to the game preaching at you.

AvidAbey

@Rika Aiuchi is SeXXXy: Um...as far as Western religions go, Christianity is pretty much the ONLY one that uses its prophet in visual media.

The question isn't about including him in the game, so much as the possible blasphemy that could arise from giving players control over him. The Internet would IMMEDIATELY be swamped with screencaps of a player-controlled Jesus teabagging NPCs, or Jesus upskirts, etc. etc. etc.

bakana

@HueyFreeman: Really, why has the popemobile never been a accessable vehicle in a widely known videogame before.

Rika Aiuchi is SeXXXy

@tzaketh: Tzaketh has a point. Though I generally don't enjoy mindlessly violent games or films (the GTA games before 4 held pretty much no interest for me), I generally find that well-written and thoughtful media from mainstream culture is generally much more relevant to Christianity, and I'd even say much more Christian than the pabulum served up by 'Christian' producers of culture, which are typically just corporate entities that have a captive market they can sell low-grade product to.

A game like GTA4 presents a world of imperfect people making horrible choices, and puts the player in a position to (at least some degree) decide how they will choose to act in this world. And even when the narrative requires the player to do an unethical act, the consequences are measured and illuminated. It's perhaps not GREAT ART, but it makes you think about how difficult it can be to try to be good in a world with so much violence, anger, and injustice in it.

'Christian' video games (and movies etc.), on the contrary, take place in some sort of fundamentalist fantasy land where ideal flawless Christians confront demonized 'sinners' who they are charged to convert, usually by shooting with some kind of magical laser sword, or pressing a button labeled 'convert' or 'pray' or whatever.

Of course many of the greatest and most thoughtful works of art in the West have been grounded in Christianity, and I don't mean to denigrate it. But the type of garbage shoveled out by 'Christian' corporations, especially in the U.S. is anything but intelligent, anything but engaging, and, frankly, anything but Christian.

bakana

@half-beast: Hahahahaha!

JibbyJam

@rianfrost: True. -_- Forgot how much Christians don't like utilizing Jesus in forms of media. As long as they get somebody that would smite evil and hit people with crosses in a sandbox though right?

Rika Aiuchi is SeXXXy

Two words.

Monsignor Martinez

King of the Hill's killer Priest.

huginn

For the record, I'm an atheist, who was a Christian until he was old enough to murder people with a car. I've spent more of my life as a Christian than as an atheist. I think a Christian sandbox game is a dumb idea. Why?

I've also worked in a Christian bookstore. With practicing, believing Christians, who, despite peddling the commodification of Christianity, simultaneously felt insulted by it.

I love videogames, and I'd like to see them thoughtfully express ideology, but I also feel compelled to yield to a guy I met from a band at a bonfire one night, when he said: "Our band used to be a Christian band, until we realized that we were using our religion to help us make money, and we decided that was wrong, so we stopped calling ourselves a Christian band."

BtownDesignGuy

@huginn: There was actually a live-action pilot made, directed by Robert Rodriguez. Good stuff.

mind in rewind

@half-beast: I'd play it!

ZombiePuppy

No, no it can not

ManlyVGnoob

@JibbyJam: Great point!

Ganji

It's interesting though, that in every game I've played that has a religious organization, it turns out to be evil. eg. Tales of Symphonia, Disgaea (well the anime at least, I'm working on the game), Luminous Arc, etc. I have yet to play one that has religion painted in a good light.

Disclaimer: Now I'm sure there are some, but I just haven't seen them yet.

Ganji

I think God ingrained in us a kind of imagination that finds simulated violence a delight. I mean, the equivalent of GTA back in Jesus' time would be children playing with sticks and horsing around. Y'know, pretend violence. Harmless stuff. All kids do it. I can't really see the Lord condemning that sort of thing. He was all about embracing the nature of children. "Only if you are like a child can you enter the kingdom of Heaven" (or something like that), and the carefree nature of play-fighting goes hand in hand with the innocence of children.

Heck, I'll even go as far as to say that I think some of the old testament Bible is SUITED for angsty teenage boys with a thirst for simulated violence. Read the book of Judges. Man, that shit is gory. We read these books for the lessons, obviously, but who's to say that some of the graphic imagery doesn't serve a purpose as well.

What I actually wanted to say was that I think this world needs Christian videogames, and I'm not talking about anything along the lines of what has been created already. There are some amazing stories in the Bible, and the world around us usually only has a vague understanding of them. The story of Paul, for example. He used to run around helping people KILL CHRISTIANS, before Jesus himself pops in front of him and basically says, "hey, stop that, follow me instead." He then becomes one of them most influential apostles in the Bible and establishes a ton of churches. His whole life is one giant adventure, filled with suffering and persecution, intermingled with a passion for God and the new church.

I see so many videogames in there. I see a videogame where in the beginning you actually go around killing Christians. It can even be fun. But the game would compel players, after the "encounter with Jesus," to drop this meager gameplay and move on to more glorious, fulfilling and FUN mechanics in the next stages. There are so many ways to accomplish this, and most of them involve stepping outside of traditional ideas and forging new paths. Think games like Shadow of the Colossus.

Christian videogames that aren't completely lame are entirely feasible, the only problem is that big-name companies aren't willing to take risks on blatantly religious products, and small "Christian" companies don't have the resources to actually create something genuinely good, or novel.

Now you all know what I would be doing had I buckets of money or the drive to be a programmer.

That's right, I would be doing cocaine. Lots of it.

JibbyJam

Actually I don't think it would be terribly difficult to do, and if they can avoid beating people over the head with how "Pro-Jesus" it is might even be able to make a game that would jump the gap into the more mainstream market.

Take the basic GTA concept and gameplay and spin it with the following story.

It's the day after judgement day, it's pretty much you and the rest of the sinners left to rot on the planet as the armies of heaven and hell strike eachother down in the streets. (Neither one openly revealing themselves as "Angels" or "Demons" of course. I'm trying to preserve the living city feel here.)

Now you have a choice, do you spend your remaining days in an orgy of violence and depravity (And of course get the "bad" ending) or do you repent and do the best you can with the time and resources you have knowing full well that there may not be any "eternal reward" waiting for you. (Which of course, it turns out there is..."Good" Ending.)

There. I just wrote the basis for a GTA style game with choices that effect your game experience and is ripe for all the "Yay God" messages you might want to put in there.

Diddy_Mao

@Ganji: thats kind of why christians feel a need to make their own games. you kind of get tired of being the cliche badguy. this happens in both eastern and western games, and to say it gets really old is an understatement.

rianfrost

@BMO: I'm sold.

DaoKaioshin

"I kick arse for the Lord!"

Has to be included somewhere in the game.

Weirdwolf

Timmy holding a Bible hits people passing by while screaming:
"The power of Christ compels you".

You get to rally at homosexuals' funerals.

Once you make it far enough, you claim that God placed you there to fight the Axis of Evil!

Don't let this game be made ever!

whiskey

@BMO: Damn! I thought the same thing when I saw the article, but ya beat me to it.

+ Watch video

Just replace the coke with a bible. But I kid.

Dangeresque: I know Gundam is dirty but I love 00

A morally right version of Grand Theft Auto...

...

Really Busy Hospital?

Killa_Charlie

@JibbyJam: Apparently you haven't played Zoo Race.

mind in rewind

I say why not?

They won't have to change much. All they have to do is clean up the main character's speech and limit the actions to movement only.

boopadoo

you could go around bombing abortion clinics, waiving the american flag, plugging your ears when confronted with problems in intelligent design, drive past the poor on your way to church every sunday to give them 10% of your money, and help priests get away with molesting little kids!!! sounds like good ole fashion christian fun to me!

PulpZero

@PulpZero: Yes, because all Christians are insane, abortion-clinic bombing, child molesting hypocrites right?

DugDawg

@PulpZero: My. These people don't sound like Jesus at all. They really do sound like hypocrites. Well, you're right!

(Is that what you want to hear?)

They must not even be Christians, what with the way they aren't following any of Jesus' teachings.

JibbyJam

@DugDawg: hypocrites, sure. insane is a little relative, but i got rid of my imaginary friends when i was about four or five... of course theyre not all abortion clinic bombing child molesters... they also enjoy such great pasttimes as expansionism, genocide, torture, witch-hunting (be it actual witches, communists, or atheists), racism, sexism, homophobia, protesting soldiers funerals, and claiming to be persecuted when they make up well more than 70% of the population

PulpZero

@JibbyJam: i dont want to hear anything. i just feel like if you're going to make a game about being a christian, then you should go the full nine, and allow people to be whatever kind of christian they want to be, whether it's the kind that does actually care for the people around them, or the kind i described.

They aren't christians? having read the bible, they seem like christians to me! the bible is filled with all sorts of insane stories involving genocide, fratricide, incest, rape, and murder.

i do like your idea about making a game that's based on the bible though (although i am not sure how it is possible to kill christians before christianity existed). can i add a scenario? you get to play as Lot. first, you get to give your daughters away to be raped by an angry mob. second, you later get to perform incest with said daughters after getting wasted in a cave with them. I'm thinking quick time events. Sound fun?

PulpZero

PopeMobile for the win!

m-p{3}

@PulpZero: JibbyJam is correct, Jesus' teachings don't support any of those activities. Stereotyping all people of a certain race or religion feeds into all of the problems you appear to be offended by.

DugDawg

I wonder what they think about the most epic flash game "Bible Fight"!

zetopazio

@DugDawg: who is stereotyping? did i say that all christians are this way? did i imply that all christians are this way? i am asking for choice. if i want to go to church in the game, i should be able to. if i want to go to planned parenthood and spit on women who come out from having a pap smear, than i should be able to do that as well.

being a christian is not just listening to what jesus said. the old testament is considered a holy book, which promotes all of the things i mentioned. but everyone wants to pick and choose, right? we can believe in this passage, but this other passage, well, it's all up for interpretation, right?

if christians really were christians, they'd all be socialist hippies who think that their religion should be kept inside of their homes, and out of both government, and the economy.

PulpZero

It would be like those Conan O'Brien spoofs of GTA4:

+ Watch video

Hahaha.

UCB-Disco

@PulpZero:

Well, the Paul I was referring to is the one mentioned in the New Testament. He was originally called Saul and went around killing members of "The Way," or the early church. You're right, they weren't CALLED Christians, but that's what they were.

Hmm. Lot offered his daughters to the mob so that he could protect the two men living under his roof, who happened to be angels, servants of God. The passage you are referring to says that the entire city (Sodom, corrupt as hell) wanted to rape these two men because they were new, almost like fresh meat, y'know? Sodomization. They didn't even accept the daughters that he offered. What happens in the story is that the angels strike the mob with blindness so that they would not attack them, and ended up protecting Lot and his family. What we take from this is that when you stand up for God he in turn stands up for you. Or something.

You're taking extremely tough Biblical passages entirely out of context and hurling them in Christians' faces as though the way that they don't make sense to you is proof that their faith is silly. I don't get it. Even considering the thought that these situations are ACTUAL HISTORICAL INCIDENCES should give you pause to think that maybe the happenings are intricately complex, much like real life tends to be.

Blah, you do the same thing with the "Lot sleeping with his daughters." And if you actually read the passage, it is painted in an entirely different light. I don't really have time to explain it all, but just know that I can, and it actually makes a lot of sense CONTEXTUALLY and with an understanding of sin. As far as difficult passages go, this one is relatively tame.

@PulpZero:

Oh, you have more.

Yea, you are implying that all Christians are this way by insulting us on Kotaku in a discussion of whether or not Christian videogames are a viable medium. Either that or it means you're just a complete asshole. I hope it doesn't.

Now you're saying what Christians should be. Cool. It really is funny how you think the old testament promotes the things that you said. It's like a child reading an algebra textbook and saying, "this is stupid, the letters don't even make words." You don't know what you're reading. It's not all up for interpretation, actually. Some of it is quite clear-cut and straightforward.

Christians probably should be socialist hippies, you're right. But I have yet to see a passage in the Bible where Jesus says, "Don't talk about me, and keep me in your homes, and away from the other parts of your life." It's quite the opposite.

You just graze the surface level of meaning, and don't even comprehend that. Ugh!

JibbyJam

@JibbyJam: you're right! since i dont believe in angels, demons, zombies, and santa claus in a toga, i obviously couldnt understand your holy scripture. it's clear that i 'just dont get it'.

or, maybe, ive read your books, understood them for what they are (not historical fact, rather parabole for a bunch of uneducated farmers and such), and see the absurdity inside of them. maybe i didnt feel like getting into any sort of theological debate while trying to make some jokes that someone, anyone, might find funny. i get the meaning of lots tale. i get why the things that happened, happened. i still think it is silly. how could an angel, which i would assume has no sex organs, and doesnt need to eat, be sodomized? but i should believe in god, and do what he says, or i'll get turned into a pillar of salt! trying to take some sort of spiritual or intellectual high ground isnt going to work with me, its just going to insult me.

honestly, i was just making a silly joke, taking the piss out of ya'll before. obviously i don't believe that all christians are what i described and i certainly wouldnt want to play a game based upon what i wrote. i have plenty of christians in my family, where i work, and as friends. but it's the crazys who seem to get all the attention. the squeeky wheel gets the oil, right? it just seems to me that the crazies in your faith are swept aside, because, 'well, they arent really christian,' when, really almost no one in your faith adheres to the rules and philosophies the old and new testament set forth.

i have to say that i find it amusing that you condem me for saying what christians should be, then mostly agree with what i said. i seem to remeber there being passages where jesus spoke of keeping your faith to yourself, and out of government (out of ceasers domain, maybe?).

PulpZero

I think its an awesome idea, and I'm the first to criticize religion in general. Imagine playing GTA but instead of jacking cars you are asking people to give you a car in the name of the lord. Or your a priest and you have discovered some kind of satanic issue and you have to bring it to the head of the catholic orders attention. I don't know if they will go that far at all, but still it would be pretty cool, if, and only if, it is done right.

madbassman39

@PulpZero:

Honestly, this is the response I really wanted to hear from you. From my perspective I was just sick of all the bashing on the crazies and the people who don't actually seem to represent Christ, and then having myself associated with them, as a follower of jesus.

I WAS mostly agreeing with some of the things you said, but only the things that are true. I do firmly believe that there are a lot of things wrong with the church and christians in general, especially in this rich western world that we live in.

The joke was in poor taste from my perspective, which is why i got all "high and mighty," but i respect your opinion and I almost like it better when someone thinks for themselves rather than following something blindly.

That's all for now, I'm in class.

JibbyJam

@JibbyJam: I was in a hurry when I wrote that, but I mean "I definitely like it better when someone thinks for themselves rather than following something blindly."

JibbyJam

Oh boy! I can't wait to "save" somebody in the head from 200 yards!

nickymouse

You can:

1) "ask" a stranger to donate his/her car, banks to donate money.
2) punish hookers for being evil.
3) excorcise demons from people, which coincidently kills the person

gta can totally go christian.

Sutekh

How about a GOD OF WAR/DEVIL MAY CRY/PRINCE OF PERSIA Bible video game knockoff? Levels organized by Biblical period and you play a Biblical character. Level one - the player is a naked Adam or Eve, eats the forbidden fruit, and then battles angels for their armor or weapons. Armor or weapons for what? Well, the player gets a boss battle with his brother (Cain and Abel). And then there is the boss battle with God (Jacob). And what about a battle with more brothers over the players armor, which of course the player will lose and be sold as a slave to a Pharoah. (Joseph). Then there's the Moses level - escape the Pharoah, fight the Egyptian Army, have to solve puzzles to get out of the desert, some platforming to retrieve the 10 Commandments, and then assemble and lead an army to conquer "the promised land." And then there's David - boss battle with Goliath, raise and army to conquer Jerusalem, sneak Prince of Persia style to seduce a General's wife. And then there's the New Testament levels. Play a Roman "tax collector" to shake down local merchants (Matthew), play a roman soldier to fight through the ranks and become the Centurian at Jesus' cruxifiction, or hunt Christians (a la Assassins Creed), convert to Christianity, perform "missions" through dangerous ancient cities, stormy seas, and try a prison escape (Paul). Sure it has violence, nudity and sex, but it's all based on the Christian Bible :-) And for those Christians who don't know their Bible ;-)... MGS4 style cutscenes on the redemption of each character.

petey3228

I'm making a Christian game...

SulakshanaSahagin

My bet is on an open-ended Left Behind series. The end times are plenty chaotic enough for a sandbox game like GTA, and you could easily set up story progression through missions in a similar fashion, knowing how the protagonist of the books runs around everywhere.

ArtemusWolfwood

The power of Christ compels them to throw their hat in. I must see a free-roaming, God-fearing GTA.

interim

I still don't know why Biblical games doen't exist. As far as "licenses" and allusions to base a game on, the Bible/Torah is rich in them.

RTS featuring the ancient and cunning Hebrew tribe as they conqure their way to the promise land. The Walls of Jericho alone beats any Normandy or Hoth.

A 'Savage' like RTS/FPS for the war against the Philistines.

An "Oregon trail" game for the travel of Abraham from Ur to Canaan.

A puzzle game for Saul and the medium to call up the ghost of Samuel.

A racing game for Noah in the style of Crazy Taxi to get as many of the animals onto his boat.

A "Sims" version of a Priest, A Rabbi, and Imam walk into a bar.

A Point and Click version of the Jesus before the Last Supper. Or if that is too much, Paul in Corinth in the same way those Auther (kid anteater on PBS) had the CD games.

A "Jet Set Radio"/De Blob/Katamari/Tornado anti-idol finder and destroyer.

It's not that Christian or any other religious games don't work, it's that they don't have people being bold enough to make a good game for it.
Either "too Christian/Jewish/Muslim" or not enough as they make their ideas.
Cheap labour or "we don't want to be like those "non-christian game makers".
Many who don't want to make a game based on Abrahamic stories and tales, because they don't want to take the risk. Then the opposite, those who want to make something to promote it, but don't want to take a risk because games are "the devils play thing".

Of course like "Christian rock" and regeae Hebrewism, it will take a while and eventualy Abrahamic based games could become good. Just not as things are today.

Shame too, because old religions such as the one for Zeus or Thor or Emperor Dragon get them and we like those games for the most part.

Kenofthedead