Left Behind Should Have Been, part 2, after they contacted me.
January 17th 2007 10:57
Well then,
after having recieved the comment that I did in the original post (and having had watched my youngest brother EthanZ play the demo and help me write this) I feel that I can now not only respond to this comment with my own, but post this as a post in itself.
This game sucks.
I speak as a gamer. And a christian. A christian gamer.
First, I shall approach how it sucks as a game.
1.Graphics poor. This is a shallow point, but as a user interface, it is inadequate. To quote Ethan "The buildings are really big and fill up the screen, the units are too small and it's hard to distinguish which are which. Guiding the camera to get a good view is a bitch." For my own opinion, I can only agree. Graphics is not only about how a game looks, but how a player can change their own perspective on the world of the game. You guys should have studied Dawn of War. This WILL be mentioned later as well. On a purely on how stuff looks, it looks pretty, but pretty in the wrong way.
2.Gameplay. Well, the point of a game is that you PLAY it. Gameplay is the redeemer of bad graphics (or at least, bad LOOKING graphics) bad story line, bad voice acting etc. In fact, gameplay is EVERYTHING. If only this game had some. And now over to Ethan. "Well people, the gameplay suffers because I can't shoot enough people. Well, maybe the shooting isn't that important. The units lack depth as compared to Warcraft 3. In WC3, you have your combat solider, but you also have your better soldiers and other units. Every unit is not only distinct from every other unit in the army, but every unit in the game. In this game you have your solider and the guy that keeps him alive. That is pretty well it. So the game isn't about killing, its supposed to be about faith, which is pretty well just converting people to your side, building churches and reading life stories. Seriously, Medieval Total War II can teach you more about catholicism than these people can. There was not enough need for micro, which affects strategy games. A good strategy game requires a gamer to have good micro to make it interesting. It also needs a gamer to have good strategy skills. This game needs neither to play it. There are things that make a game really fun to play. This game has none of them. Dawn of War is fun because of the pace, and the flowing game style. This game is boring, as it lacks pace and style"
3.Sound. The cheerful orchestral soundtrack of good is nice. Lets not forget the works of art of Marty O'Donnell with the Halo series and Harry Gregson Williams with the Metal Gear Solid series. Let us also NOT forget Homeworld either, which won awards for it's musical score (which included Adagio for strings). The only problem with sound is the chanting. Hey, no one loves the brainless chanting of the living dead more than me. But when you get three or more units in one group, the zombielike tones they take on is more suitable to a pseudo religious din. But seriously, we christians only sound like we're chanting if we're Gregorian monks. The voice acting is pretty poor. Except the tutorial guy. We like him.
My turn. That being me. Josh.
As a christian, my biggest complaints against the game aren't religious ones. They are ethical ones. The books themselves and game share the same fault. Poor construction at a basic level. Characters, dialogue and plot all matched with graphics, gameplay and sound. Clumsy, clumsy and not interesting enough to be redeeming. They were terribly made and could have been done better.
JZ and EZ
after having recieved the comment that I did in the original post (and having had watched my youngest brother EthanZ play the demo and help me write this) I feel that I can now not only respond to this comment with my own, but post this as a post in itself.
This game sucks.
I speak as a gamer. And a christian. A christian gamer.
First, I shall approach how it sucks as a game.
1.Graphics poor. This is a shallow point, but as a user interface, it is inadequate. To quote Ethan "The buildings are really big and fill up the screen, the units are too small and it's hard to distinguish which are which. Guiding the camera to get a good view is a bitch." For my own opinion, I can only agree. Graphics is not only about how a game looks, but how a player can change their own perspective on the world of the game. You guys should have studied Dawn of War. This WILL be mentioned later as well. On a purely on how stuff looks, it looks pretty, but pretty in the wrong way.
2.Gameplay. Well, the point of a game is that you PLAY it. Gameplay is the redeemer of bad graphics (or at least, bad LOOKING graphics) bad story line, bad voice acting etc. In fact, gameplay is EVERYTHING. If only this game had some. And now over to Ethan. "Well people, the gameplay suffers because I can't shoot enough people. Well, maybe the shooting isn't that important. The units lack depth as compared to Warcraft 3. In WC3, you have your combat solider, but you also have your better soldiers and other units. Every unit is not only distinct from every other unit in the army, but every unit in the game. In this game you have your solider and the guy that keeps him alive. That is pretty well it. So the game isn't about killing, its supposed to be about faith, which is pretty well just converting people to your side, building churches and reading life stories. Seriously, Medieval Total War II can teach you more about catholicism than these people can. There was not enough need for micro, which affects strategy games. A good strategy game requires a gamer to have good micro to make it interesting. It also needs a gamer to have good strategy skills. This game needs neither to play it. There are things that make a game really fun to play. This game has none of them. Dawn of War is fun because of the pace, and the flowing game style. This game is boring, as it lacks pace and style"
3.Sound. The cheerful orchestral soundtrack of good is nice. Lets not forget the works of art of Marty O'Donnell with the Halo series and Harry Gregson Williams with the Metal Gear Solid series. Let us also NOT forget Homeworld either, which won awards for it's musical score (which included Adagio for strings). The only problem with sound is the chanting. Hey, no one loves the brainless chanting of the living dead more than me. But when you get three or more units in one group, the zombielike tones they take on is more suitable to a pseudo religious din. But seriously, we christians only sound like we're chanting if we're Gregorian monks. The voice acting is pretty poor. Except the tutorial guy. We like him.
My turn. That being me. Josh.
As a christian, my biggest complaints against the game aren't religious ones. They are ethical ones. The books themselves and game share the same fault. Poor construction at a basic level. Characters, dialogue and plot all matched with graphics, gameplay and sound. Clumsy, clumsy and not interesting enough to be redeeming. They were terribly made and could have been done better.
JZ and EZ
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Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Now, efforts to make Christianity cool often reflect, I think, the natural other side of the coin. One's critique in censorship is oversimplified, so one's efforts to produce propaganda are also wrong-headed. The result is something that comes across as heavy-handed, preachy, one-dimensional...
It seems to me, on reading your review, that something like that happened here.
Comment by JoshZ
A Simple Christian
I agree with Jacques Ellul when he said that any attempt to make the Gospel or christianity "cool" takes away from the truth of it.
Christianity isn't supposed to be cool.
I think that any PR work that christians try to do should simply be loving people and living lifestyles of love to them.
JZ