There have been several attempts to make “Christian video games”, which in my opinion….are really bad.  I cannot say I like a game just because I’m a Christian and it happens to be a Christian themed game.  Just the same as myself being Hisapnic (my family is Cuban, I was born in NYC), I honestly don’t like a lot of Cuban food!  No me gusta lechon ni yuca frita!  (I don’t like fried pork and yucca).

But the issue isn’t so much as to how bad these games are, the fact that I’ve never heard of them and neither have you, you can check this article out to see how bad the graphics are and how the game is played.

These games make us as Christians look bad and don’t show excellence in what we do.  We just do a quick, bad job and say “glory to God, souls for Jesus!” and call it a day.  Yet, in this world we live in, consumers (me and you) have high standards and doing a bad job with good intentions isn’t good enough.  Now, there are some great games that do represent great Christian morals, and I applaude them for doing so (even if that wasn’t their intent), but then there are some other games that misrepresent the church at large (Christianity) and just make us into some evil “organization” out to either A) Rule the world with an iron fist or B) Some demonic entity is ruling the whole thing.

Example A:

Have you ever heard of Grandia II?  Well, it’s an old JRPG that I played when it came out (I’m a BIG JRPG fan!) and the final boss is…the pope (Holy Pope Zera’s his name)!  The man you see pictured above is actually a demon of sorts who wants to control the world through the church.  The main protaginist Ryudo and Elena defeat him because he decided since the “good god” was dead, he would become possessed with the “evil god” of the game to make the world…happy?  He knew that of course, and was kind of an “evil pope” you could say.  I’m not Catholic (used to be, but that’s another story.), but I love the Catholic people and church, and when I saw that I was in shock.  That would never happen in a Western game.  Again, just a cheap shot to the church in my opinion, though I’m sure that the Japanese took it as just a plot twist.

Example B:

Deathevn from BoF2 (Breath of Fire 2, yes, another JRPG you’ve probably never heard of 🙂  He runs the church of St. Eva (the church of the game) which is in reality a front for gathering energy from people to release the seal that will release their “evil god” onto the world and bring destruction.  I won’t ruin the story, but the short story is the main character defeats the “ruler of the church”, who is actually the evil god that his minions have been trying to resurrect.  He’s the seed left from the previous evil goddess from Breath of fire 1.  Basically, your fighting the “god” of the church, and the church is seen as evil and manipulating.  Again, another cheap shot at the church which in my eyes is just a nice plot twist for the Japanese.  I love Japan, I just don’t appreciate how they portray Christianity at times in games.  Not all games, just a few.

*(Check out the upcoming Breath of Fire 6 if your interested, and their Japanese site!)

The point of this post is to show that even video games can misrepresent and shape our view of who God is.  He isn’t an evil tyrant out to destroy us all and rule world (insert evil laugh here).  No, He sent His Son Jesus Christ to save the world, not condemn it: