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Left Behind Video Game Hopes to Improve Public Relations Before It’s Too Late

C Wess Daniels

Jan 11, 2007 • 2 min read

[Edited to Add Picture Link see the bottom of post for more details]
I’ve writen a couple time on the new Left Behind Video Game called “Eternal Forces.”

Post #1 — Left Behind Eternal Forces: Violence for Christians

Post #2 Training Violent Behaviors: Media and the Message of Desensitization

[rant] Yes, I admit though I haven’t played the video game I have some strong opinions about it (in all reality I don’t think I need to play the game to make the objections I’ve made but that’s another dicussion). One of the main reasons why it bothers me is because I see it as yet another way for the Christian community to sell-out to capitalism. We see repeated attempts to tailor make theology in a way that suites American tastes, at the cost to both the Gospel and to those who accept a warped understanding of such. I suspect it won’t be long before there is a special Christian edition Hummer that comes in white, is armor-ready for the tribulation and boasts of having special bible holders built in. [/rant]

Well, I’ve let this all alone for awhile till this morning I get a tasty little comment from the elusive ‘SJR’ on behalf of Troy Lyndon the video games’ company CEO hoping to do a little damage control on their so far overwhelmingly bad PR and invites us to read some reports from “unbiased reviewers.”

My favorite part of the comment is when he suggests I am not a credible unbiased expert, I can’t believe it.

Please play the game demo for yourself (to at least level 5 of 40) to get an accurate perspective, or listen to what CREDIBLE unbiased experts are saying after reviewing the game at www.leftbehindgames.com/pages/controversy.com

Of course his link is bad — you want to go here for the controversy. But you’ll notice at least some of the reviewers aren’t religious places at all. Why not post big name religious voices on the site to give a more balanced perspective. It is harder to get people like Billy Graham, Richard Mouw or Tony Campolo to say anything you want however, and then if you didn’t use it they’d probably keep sharing their review anyways and that wouldn’t work. Unbiased views are impossible, everyone has their own takes, their own political, religious, and cultural baggage we bring to the everything we do. And so a better way to improve their image is to paint a larger picture with people from various perspectives commenting. We can only hope that in opening ourselves up to others that we really do become credible. But jumping around on other people’s sites and leaving rude comments and then pretending like “you’ll really listen” next time is a bunch of bahooey!

And one of their “unbiased” reviewers actually dislikes the game quite a bit.

Thanks Chris Frazier of Quaker 2.0 for pointing out the in-game ad for the Army.
Screenshot link — Ad link here.