Catholic Video Games

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EphelDuath said:
This thread got me interested in Castlevania again, so I re-beat the original NES one and I’m currently replaying Dracula’s Curse.

I find it interesting that Alucard, a half-vampire, sleeps in a coffin underneath a cross. Which makes him a Christian undead out to fight the forces of evil. What does he pray before he goes to sleep? “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, May I die again in peace with Thee?”
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Is a half-vampire really undead? Or just half-undead? Does he get to check that box on his Census form?

By the way, I hated how the big powerful son of Dracula takes more damage than Trevor and has a fairly wimpy tri-fireball attack. His only real use, besides looking tough with that cape, is to turn into a bat to avoid some of the more frustrating falling brick/pitfall stages.
 
Though not overtly so, I find the Half-Life games, particularly the second one and its sequels, are very much informed by a Religious/Christian worldview.
In the games the world has been conquered by an alien empire which dominates through perverted, out-of-control science. The villains speak about rejecting nature, instinct, and ‘superstitious, magical thinking.’ They enforce their will through measures such as propaganda, torture, invasive surgery, mass contraception, and biological warfare on civilian targets as they suck the Earth dry of its resources. They try to claim scientific progress as justification for genocide.
In contrast, the heroes, also scientists, emphasize courage, loyalty, friendship, and family. The heroes make sincere references to God and prayer. One of the good guys is even a priest, albeit a crazy one. Still, he is a very likeable and helpful ally, and it’s clear that his faith is not the source of his insanity, but rather the one thing which is keeping him human (he is the only survivor of an entire town which has been turned into zombies).
Again, none of this is overt, but the games clearly take as their philosophy that religion, family, and friendship are traits essential of a healthy humanity.
 
I know this is an old post but i had some similar ideas and i wondered if anyone made any progress towards any ideas (other than the sites posted).

Cymonk
 
Nintendo made a point of removing religious images from it’s games, in the 8-bit era, so as to avoid offence or accusations of blasphemy. Zelda originally contained images of the cross on Link’s shield. But Nintendo recieved so many complaints from christian organisations that they made it official censorship policy and enforced it on third party programmers too. They allowed christian companies like “Wisdom tree” to make third party titles with support, but delibratly didn’t give the games “official seal” endorsement.

That’s one major reason mainstream religious games still don’t exist today, except when designed by christian programmers for most likely limited boutique release. If only the other media(and other game companies like Sony and microsoft) still had the same conservative attitude perhaps the world would be a better place.
 
colliric said:
Nintendo made a point of removing religious images from it’s games, in the 8-bit era, so as to avoid offence or accusations of blasphemy. Zelda originally contained images of the cross on Link’s shield. But Nintendo recieved so many complaints from christian organisations that they made it official censorship policy and enforced it on third party programmers too. They allowed christian companies like “Wisdom tree” to make third party titles with support, but delibratly didn’t give the games “official seal” endorsement.

That’s one major reason mainstream religious games still don’t exist today, except when designed by christian programmers for most likely limited boutique release. If only the other media(and other game companies like Sony and microsoft) still had the same conservative attitude perhaps the world would be a better place.
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Just a fast FYI Wisdom Tree made unlicensed games.
 
Interesting posts. Any backing links that I could read more about it by chance? Otherwise, have you seen any other decent Catholic Video games(or Christian for that matter)?
 
cyberwolf001 said:
Just a fast FYI Wisdom Tree made unlicensed games.
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Nintendo allowed Wisdom tree to make the games without threat of litigation. On the Other hand, Atari had tried to do the same thing, make unlicensed games for the Nes, using the same process later employed by Wisdom Tree. Nintendo sued Atari for breach of copywrite, because to do that on the NES required manufacturing a false cartridge recognition chip, and Nintendo won. They could have also done the same to Wisdom Tree but choose not to because it was a religious games company, the titles had limited appeal and were not made for profit.
 
I liked those comments on Portal and Half-Life. I played those both and that clarified to me how awesome they are. 🙂

I have a liking for Final Fantasy, specifically Final Fantasy 5. The main villain, Exdeath, once he is consumed by the Void, says that he will destroy all existence, and then destroy himself. Now I’ve been getting into the Summa Theologiae recently (I’m still a philosophy/theology n00b) and it seems that the villain desires the most evil one could possibly desire, since he seeks evil on the most basic level of existence. It also suggests a vital concept lost to this relativist age, that good and evil are not two equal sides of the pie, but evil is LACK of good, in the same way that non-existence is the LACK of existence. Also, FF5 has a great job system that gives a ton of replay value. I customized a character to have a Gandalf setup with a holy staff in one hand and Excalibur in the other. 😃
 
Bioshock seems like an excellent game… too bad my computer is too old to play it… 😦

I have played Half-Life, but I never really thought of it in a Christian perspective… hm…
 
TarkanAttila said:
Bioshock seems like an excellent game… too bad my computer is too old to play it… 😦

I have played Half-Life, but I never really thought of it in a Christian perspective… hm…
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Stay away from Bioshock, it’s pretty anti-Catholic. Andrew Ryan explicitly criticizes the Vatican and Christianity. Also, in Bioshock 2, there is one part where you have to kill a priest as part of your mission.:eek:
 
Fallout 3 is an interesting game. It may look like another mindless shoot-em-up game, but it has several religious motifs in it, or “Easter Eggs” as fans call them. For example, your parents’ favorite Bible verse is Revelation 21:6
“I am Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. To the thristy I will give a spring of life-giving water, free and clean, for any and all.”
Since the game takes place after a nuclear war, all of the water in Washington, DC is irradiated. So your parents built a water purifier in the ruins of the Jefferson Memorial. In the game, you can choose to be good or evil. At the end, the purifier must be started, but it will release a ton of radiation and kill whoever starts it. You can choose to sacrifice yourself for the good of mankind, just like Jesus.
 
JackVk said:
Stay away from Bioshock, it’s pretty anti-Catholic. Andrew Ryan explicitly criticizes the Vatican and Christianity. Also, in Bioshock 2, there is one part where you have to kill a priest as part of your mission.:eek:
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I played Bioshock. Andrew Ryan is the villain, and the disaster in Rapture pretty thoroughly disproves his beliefs.
In fact one of Ryan’s audio diary entries, if you find it, shows that he realized his error at one point, then refused to admit the truth to himself - he went into denial.
Brainfreeze91 is right, too. More than once I found piles of bibles and crucifixes labeled as smuggled goods.
I haven’t seen Bioshock II, so can’t comment on the claim that the hero has to kill a priest.
If anyone has – was there any alternative allowed? Refuse the mission, perhaps with consequences?

By the way, how many players think the name “Andrew Ryan” is derived from “Ayn Rand”?
 
JackVk said:
Fallout 3 is an interesting game. It may look like another mindless shoot-em-up game, but it has several religious motifs in it, or “Easter Eggs” as fans call them. For example, your parents’ favorite Bible verse is Revelation 21:6
“I am Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. To the thristy I will give a spring of life-giving water, free and clean, for any and all.”
Since the game takes place after a nuclear war, all of the water in Washington, DC is irradiated. So your parents built a water purifier in the ruins of the Jefferson Memorial. In the game, you can choose to be good or evil. At the end, the purifier must be started, but it will release a ton of radiation and kill whoever starts it. You can choose to sacrifice yourself for the good of mankind, just like Jesus.
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I haven’t played it through, but have heard a lot about this ending from others. Most were upset about it.
Reasons given:
First, the setup was clumsy, in that the only choices were to sacrifice one’s life or be branded a coward by the game, in the person of survivors. The Wanderer (the hero) may have acted with extreme courage and dedication up to that moment but would still be vilified if he didn’t take the suicide route.
Second, there were at least two, maybe three, npc followers who were immune to radiation, and might be present for the final choice. They could have entered the chamber without suffering harm. Yet the Wanderer was told that only* he* could do it, nobody else. This turns the choice from “heroic sacrifice” to “total railroad” and makes it pointless besides.
 
Yeah i know. i did broken steel and all the dlcs. Mothership zeta is stupid, but the pitt, operation anchorage, and point lookout are really cool
 
I played Operation Anchorage (least favorite) and The Pitt (not bad), but Broken Steel… Broke my game to where it wasn’t playable even with the newest patches :P.

I can confirm the games original ending too as one of sacrifice or cowardice. You can even choose to have mercy on both of the main bad “guys” instead of killing them.

I looked online for the Wisdom Tree games. You can actually play 7 of the old NES games they made with an on-site emulator (under the Arcade section). Most of them are pretty terrible (not fun) except “Spiritual Warfare.” It kinda plays like a modern Zelda (the first one for NES). The music gets annoying after three hours of playing though and you can tell by the random quizes that the focus is on Protestant teachings of the Bible (for the most part).
 
Yomic said:
I played Operation Anchorage (least favorite) and The Pitt (not bad), but Broken Steel… Broke my game to where it wasn’t playable even with the newest patches :P.
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How exactly did it “break” our game? Was the data corrupt or was the memory device screwed up?
Also, do you play on console or PC? I have it for xbox and yes, it does crash and glitch very often. I installed it all on my hard drive, which made crashing much less frequent.
 
No, I didn’t mean it broke the game in general. It broke my PC installation of the game. It was unplayable because it would crash nearly every 30-10 minutes (after I installed broken steel). OA just wasn’t that fun in my opinion.
 
I’d like to mention the Mass Effect series here. Its a god rpg and game in itself, but im not sure how it would be judged by a christian/catholic audience. There is an interesting part in Mass Effect 2. A geth, a robot, joins your party and is dubbed Legion, after the Gospel of Mark 5:9 quote “My name is Legion, for we are many” (‘Legion’ being made up of 1,183 separate programs on a single ‘platform’. Also possesses a double meaning as the Geth are a your main enemies in Mass Effect 1). It discusses a part where a geth unit asked its Quarian master/creator if it had a ‘soul’, bringing forth the argument of if sentient machines could, walk, talk and feel emotion, could they be considered having a ‘soul’.
 
I remember the old NES had bible games, of course they had a more protestant touch but were still fun!

zhaneaugustine.deviantart.com/art/The-Vatican-Sim-game-DS-139259200 i kind of made a fake game box here in the likes of the sims games and civilization games.

There is a program called rpg maker XP and Vx which allows one to create their own role playing games. I’m in the process of learning how to use it now.
 
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