B&H Publishing Group has put together “Bible Navigator X” for the Xbox 360. Unlike the Gideons, they’re not giving it out for free. It’ll run you 400 points. Yeah? Well, the God I believe in isn’t short of Microsoft Points, mister …

According to Media Bistro, Aaron Linne, B&H’s executive director of digital marketing, said:

The Xbox isn’t just secular entertainment anymore. We can use technology that other people developed to study Scriptures through a new medium. Some people are just more comfortable with a controller in their hands than a book.

The version used is the Holman Christian Standard Bible. I’m not sure how that one differs, but then, I was raised in a part of the country where there literally are bumper stickers that say “If It’s Not King James, It’s Not Real Bible.” So if you drive that truck I saw on I-40 in Burke County, this probably won’t appeal to you.

Who’s reviewing this? Totilo talked about “XBLA Chasers” and this qualifies, so I volunteer him!

The Bible on Your Xbox [Media Bistro via Destructoid]

InspiredMedia d/b/a Left Behind Games Inc., worked out the pilot release of its titles in 100 Walmarts in the Houston and Dallas areas. The sales will test the games’ viability in additional Walmart locations.

In a news release, Inspired Media sees Texas as fertile ground for its products, noting that the Lone Star State is home to more than 23,000 churches and an evangelical Protestant population of 5 million.

Inspired Media produced 2006’s Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a real-time strategy game in which the player attempts to pray opposing forces into submission after all faithful souls leave the Earth during the Rapture, and the world reforms under a secularist order that loves, among other things, rock n’ roll. It was followed by Left Behind: Tribulation Forces for PC in 2006 and 2007. Eternal Forces racked up a Metacritic score of 38.

Christian Games Hit Texas Wal-Marts [Game Politics]

Don’t even bother telling me “You just don’t get it, it’s art!” because I’ve already accepted that as a foregone conclusion. Still, even a blind person can appreciate art in some way…because not all art is visual. Just so, I’m out to appreciate FATALE for what it is, even if I’m not entirely clear on what I’m dealing with.

Spoiler Warning: The nature of this game makes it impossible to talk about it without marring the experience the developer wants you to have.

What Is It?
FATALE is a 3D adventure game where players take the role of John the Baptist first during his final hours before an unceremonious beheading and then as his ghost in the courtyard above where he died. The text within the game and most of the inspiration for its visual come from Oscar Wilde’s play, Salome.

What We Saw
I played all three levels of the game on a copy I purchased for myself.

How Far Along Is It?
It’s out now.

What Needs Improvement?
Make It Easier To Review The Controls: The control scheme changes between the three levels of the game and it’s not easy to review them or to puzzle them out on your own. The game comes with Read Me file you could of course access while playing the game, or you can pause and navigate through a menu to look up the controls. But it’d be a lot more helpful and a lot less jarring to just press a single button have the controls for that level appear on screen in front of you.

What The Hell Are The Amp And The Guitar Doing There? Seriously, what gives with the anachronistic props? Don’t knock me out of the time period just for shits and giggles.

What Should Stay The Same?
It’s Very, Very Pretty: I’ve never seen such a gorgeous indie game. The subtle motions of Salome’s veils and the dramatic colours on the face of her murderous mother are but two examples of the game’s striking art style that comes back to haunt you even after you’ve completed the game.

Well-Used Music: There’s only one song in the whole game and the developer gets some excellent mileage out of it.

Thought-Provoking: Maybe I’m wrong about art (and my high school art teacher will likely attest to this), but I always thought it was there to make you think. Maybe it upsets you with something alarming or violent, maybe it captivates you with something pretty and complex. Either way, I really felt like FATALE was making me think — not just about the source material and how it was worked into the game, but about abstract concepts like time and remorse. Pretentious, sure. But way better than being bored or disgusted.

Final Thoughts
I’m not sure if can explain exactly what went on while playing FATALE, but I am sure that I enjoyed it even during alarming moments like where I got my head chopped off. With a little effort and an open mind, you probably will enjoy it as well — thought I don’t know if that holds true for Bible purists who think Oscar Wilde was off his rocker.

When it launches later this month the website will feature the entire line of post-apocalyptic Left Behind Games titles will be featured on the site as well as hundreds of other family-friendly games, according to Inspired Media Entertainment.

“The company’s goal is to establish an affiliate network with at least one percent of the churches — just 3,000 — that would produce an average sales of 50 games per church a year within three years,” said Left Behind Games CEO Troy Lyndon. “This alone would generate supplemental revenue of $US3 million a year, but more importantly, will provide parents with a healthy alternative for their children.”

Lyndon says that a portion of the profits from the site would be given to the churches as an incentive for them to encourage their congregations to go to the Inspired Media online store. So think of it as a sort of holy pyramid scheme.

Left Behind Games hopes to establish an affiliate network with at least 3,000 churches nationwide, with hopes that they would sell on average 50 games per a church a year. That would end up pulling in about $US3 million a year, Lyndon says.

“In contrast to almost all other PC games, Inspired Media games encourage positive decisions and actions,” Lyndon said. “Rather than the usual ‘winning’ by using weapons and killing the enemy, players are rewarded when their characters use the power of influence to bring about good rather than destruction.”

I guess all of that heathen killing in the original Left Behind game doesn’t count.

Eventually, Lyndon hopes to get his games placed in prisons for rehabilitative purposes.

In case you didn’t read the free ads put out by the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times, EA hired a bunch of people to wave signs, hand out pamphlets and pretend-protest that EA was gonna burn in hell for making a game about it. Since that stereotypes people who wave signs, hand out pamphlets and damn people to hell, someone went out of their way to be offended on their behalf.

“It’s been clear for a while now that the entertainment inudstry views Christians on the whole as priggish, thin-skinned fun-killers,” writes InsideCatholic.com’s Margaret Cabaniss. She’s right. I have no idea where they got that impression. She points out that some of the faithful aren’t prudes and do in fact game – her own site has discussed modern gaming favorably. (”For a lot of Catholics, the Middle Ages is the place to be. And for that, you cannot beat Medieval 2: Total War.”) And they’re rewarded with that by a fake protest that stereotypes unreasonable people.

She wasn’t the only one pissed. Ranteth Catholic Video Gamers:

Ok, look Electronic Arts, as much as the hardcore gaming community is full of the risible self-parodies known as the “freethinking” – the Richard Dawkins-loving, fundamentalist atheist, “I’m-so-much-smarter-than-you-are-because-I-don’t-believe-in-God” types, I doubt that even they would actually be more likely to buy a game because they *think* that their ideological foes (the equally risible Fundamentalist Creationist, anti-Catholic, evangelical “Christians”) happen to hate it. Gamers of all varieties will buy this product if its, well, actually a good game. So instead of engaging in a shamelessly anti-Christian stunt to promote your poor excuse of a product, maybe you ought to work on making this game, you know, something better than a blatant God of War rip-off and make it, ya know, something worthwhile?

Excuse my “freethinking” but we’re talking about a game that’s already made. So your admonishment to pour the effort spent hating Christians back into making the game is moot. How about this instead: Not every jackassed thing done by a game company deserves, ya know, your personal offence and an indignant response?

Faith-Based Bloggers Slam EA For Staging Fake Religious Protest at E3 [GamePolitics]

In a response to the “manufactured controversy” that surrounded the year-old game earlier this week, a new, improved version of Faith Fighter has been made available on Molleindustria’s website.

Faith Fighter 2 is the sequel of the infamous game that outraged over 1.3 billions of muslims from 57 countries. The scandal resulted in a ban from all the internets!

We regretted the use of irony and violence and this time we want to offer you a positive, nonviolent educational game that teaches the universal values of tolerance and respect. This is a very simple game that can be played by children of all ages, religious leaders and even journalists!

They’re right, Faith Fighter 2 is far simpler than its predecessor. Though don’t take it too easy, because the stakes are much higher this time, and if you lose, well…

[Faith Fighter 2]

The Italian group of artists and programmers removed the 2D fighter from its web site today, following an official statement from the organisation of Islamic Conference, according to Molleindustria, and a “successfully manufactured [...] controversy” from news outlet Metro UK.

“Faith Fighter depicted in a mildly politically incorrect way all the major religions as a response to the one-way islamophobic satire of the Danish Mohammad cartoons,” reads a statement from Molleindustria. “If a [sic] established organisation didn’t understand the irony and the message of the game and is claiming it is inciting intolerance, we simply failed.”

Molleindustria says that Faith Fighter, which was released online over a year ago but was apparently recently noticed by concerned religious groups or late-to-the-party Metro editorial staff, only received two formal complaints from “two catholic players.”

“This has happened before with games as Super Columbine Massacre RPG, Virtual Jihadi and our Operation: Pedopriest, works that attracted heavy criticism based on false assumptions spread by mass media,” reads the statement.

Molleindustria calls the removal of Faith Fighter a “symbolic act,” as the game is available via other sources, including popular Flash game web site Newgrounds.com.

Faith Fighter Statement [Molleindustria]

But not right away, as the Metro UK reveals that religious types of all faiths are fuming over the web game. While Molleindustria says on its web site that Faith Fighter is “not intended to be offensive to any religion in particular,” but instead to “push gamers to reflect on how the religions and sacred representations are often instrumentally used to fuel or justify conflicts between nations and people” others strong disagree.

“This game is going out of its way to upset people and I think it should be taken off the internet,” said Douglas Miller, pastor of the Link Church in Birmingham, according to Metro’s report.

Calls to ban online game of Holy hatred [Metro UK via GamePolitics]

Never mind that Hanuman: Boy Warrior - billed as the first console game developed entirely in India - is a crappy game. It’s controversial! Well, to an American Hindu, anyway.

I am not a Hindu scholar by any stretch. But a quick check reveals that Hanuman is one of the more important figures in Hinduism and the Ramayana, an Indian epic poem. So, putting him into a video game – worse yet, a video game in which he can be manipulated – was bound to rankle someone as trivializing sacred figures and concepts.

It turns out that someone happens to be the U.S. based leader of the U.S.-based Universal Society of Hinduism. He wants Sony, the game’s publisher (it’s for the PS2) to pull the title. So, take it away, Rajan Zed:

[Zed argued that] controlling and manipulating Lord Hanuman with a joystick/ button/keyboard/mouse was denigration. Lord Hanuman was not meant to be reduced to just a “character” in a video game to solidify company/products base in the growing economy of India.

Rajan Zed further said that as a PlayStation2 video game, Lord Hanuman would be in the company of America’s 10 Most Wanted, Bad Boys, Barbie, Britney’s Dance Beat, First Kiss Stories, Guitar Freaks, Jackass, Killer7, Looney Tunes, Mafia, Mercenaries, Midnight Club, Mister Mosquito, Nicktoons, Psychonauts, Scooby Doo, Truckers, etc.

Oh no, not – gasp - NICKTOONS!!!!

A better response may have been to just kill this thing with silence. GamePolitics points out that the Indian gaming site Tech2 gave Hanuman (the game, not the deity) a terrible review. Similarly, Gaming Indians is circumspect about the controversy.

Yes, Hanuman: Boy Warrior should be withdrawn by Sony. Not for religious reasons however, but simply because the game is just so bad. Ever since this game came out, I’m sure we’ve all been waiting for some Hindu fundamentalist to show up and make video games the enemy. But it’s quite funny that no one in India has really cared… while someone in America has taken up the charge…

Hindus Protest PS2 Game Released in India [GamePolitics]

Somewhat understandably, given the fact he’s Jewish, Rabbi Micah Kelber has always had a few issues with Nazis. Until, that is, he played Call of Duty: World at War.

Writing for the Jewish newspaper/website Forward, Kelber says that WaW’s in-your-face moral choices (which you get quite often in the Soviet missions) do more than just give you a break from the “kill everyone in sight” routine. They help you explore the morality of war, they help make war a more “visceral experience” for Jews. And they help cure a man of his fear of Nazis.

How so? Kelber explains:

The surprising benefit of the game was that throughout my entire life, since sneaking into the synagogue library with David Yagobian and paging through a book of Nazi medical experiments, I have had nightmares about Nazis. Jewish summer camp didn’t help. In games like “Call of Duty,” you get unlimited lives; you keep playing the game until you are victorious. It’s a safe place. When your character dies, you may have to go back to a checkpoint, but this is simply inconvenient, never tragic or final. You will always have another chance to kill your demons.

One morning, I woke up extremely aware that I had just had a Nazi dream. No surprise, given that I wrote this review and played the game late into the night. But I was shocked that it did not scare me as it would have done in the past: The back of my neck was dry. The game had subconsciously flipped a switch. Although clearly there are still very real threats to Jews around the world, the feeling that Nazis were a threat to my existence was created by teachers and rabbis, rightly making sure that I knew my history. In truth, that specific anxiety was not real, but virtual. And I could vanquish it virtually, as well.

Just when you thought you’d heard and seen everything you think you can about a game/genre, along comes something that casts it in an entirely new light.

Shoot ‘Em Ups Come of Age [Forward, via MTV]