My theory as to why all bible games have been terrible.

[Not G. Ivingname]

After rewatching the AVGN's chirstmas specials, I wondered why no games based on the Bible have gone above the levels of decent. When it came down to it, I figured out their are two causes. The first one is the fact that the Old and New Testimates don't lend them selves as epics that can translate into games. Unlike Norse, Chinese or Greek myth, the bible holds few monsters, antgonists to work with, or stories with conflict that is easy to put into an interactive medium. Any monsters that do appear are either sent by god to teach somebody a lesson or some really big dude that gets killed off in five seconds by the hero with a stone. There are demons, but they don't get much light until say the book of revolations or Dante's Inferno (the poem, not the game), while all human bad guys die from god snapping his fingers. Developer's have tried to go around these issues by making up events or putting the religious adventures in the present day, though these have their own issues of logic problems and being even more boring.

The other main issue is that the developers come in two camps, people who want to force the Bible into all the throats of everybody, and people who want to use religion to make easy money. The people from the first camp make games for the sole reason to spread God's word and show that everybody else is wrong. Left Behind: Eternal Forces for example has you playing as group of Chrisitians fighting a global goverment that is run by the Anti-Christ. Basically, your goal is to shoot every non-God believing soul left on Earth. Developers like Wisdom Tree on the other hand used religion like porn to sell there crapy games. Indeed, "Sunday Fun Day" was actually a clone of Wisdom Trees own game "Menace Beach" (before they were known as Wisdom Tree) that had your girlfriend chained to a wall with ever decreasing amount of clothing. Without being lisenced by Nintendo, Wisdom Tree sold many games in Chirstian Book stores that wouldn't shelve Mario or Zelda games. In both cases these guys are under funded/don't know a lot about making a good game, so leaving crap in its wake.

Just a little theory I had, what do you guys think is the reason why games that praise the Lord ulimately fail?

 

[delet]

Perhaps it's also that a good deal of people are moving towards becoming Atheist or otherwise not part of the main, big religions. Because of this, making a game about the Bible wouldn't go down too well with this growing majority and the game wouldn't sell to well.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

Let me stop you right there, the reason they're aren't any Bible games(that you know of there are plenty) is because the Bible is clear. Mythology not so much which is why game creators use it as a free idea bin. The Bible being straight forward provides explanation unlike mythology.

 

[Baralak]

I'm going to say because the companies that make them don't really know how, ro spend enough time on the game to make it good and worth playing. That's an entire freaking book, there. I KNOW there's potential in there somewhere for a fun game that(hopefully) doesn't try to force you to convert.

 

[Chamale]

The first one is the fact that the Old and New Testaments don't lend them selves as epics that can translate into games. Unlike Norse, Chinese or Greek myth, the bible holds few monsters, antagonists to work with, or stories with conflict that is easy to put into an interactive medium.

I'm going to stop you right there and point at this article [http://www.cracked.com/article_15699_9-most-badass-bible-verses.html].

 

[Heresy101]

Let me stop you right there, the reason they're aren't any Bible games(that you know of there are plenty) is because the Bible is clear. Mythology not so much which is why game creators use it as a free idea bin. The Bible being straight forward provides explanation unlike mythology.

Clear?! LOLWUT. You'd need a team of 27 theologians just to understand which bits are metaphor and what "context" the verses could possibly be in that makes them ok.

My theory as to why all bible games have been terrible:
The Bible itself is terrible. Poor source material.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

Let me stop you right there, the reason they're aren't any Bible games(that you know of there are plenty) is because the Bible is clear. Mythology not so much which is why game creators use it as a free idea bin. The Bible being straight forward provides explanation unlike mythology.

Clear?! LOLWUT. You'd need a team of 27 theologians just to understand which bits are metaphor and what "context" the verses could possibly be in that makes them ok.

My theory as to why all bible games have been terrible:
The Bible itself is terrible. Poor source material.

Whatever you say paperboy, cause darwin was oh so clear!

 

[Marter]

It seems that people as a whole aren't religious any more. Basing something that is not in the interest of both the players and developers does not make for a good game.

 

[saintchristopher]

The Bible was just a boring story. Sorry.

 

[Mekado]

Well, are bible games even supposed to be fun? I think most (if not all) of them are made as learning material, just in another medium than a paperback bible...

 

[Limzz]

Personally I would never buy a game from a studio that made a "Bible Game"

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Well, the bible is a pretty boring book if you ask me. Even that Revelations bit is dry (by my standards of what constitutes good fiction anyway). Besides, how can you make a game about the bible? Are you Jeebus on an endless grind quest to preach and heal the sick. And where would the suspense be? We all know how the story ends, the bloke gets nailed to cross.
An adventure game might work, but it wouldn't appeal to a wide enough audience, even by adventure game standards.
And another thing, how many gamers are actually christians (or boring enough to want to play a game based on one of the oldest fictional books around)? Or would the game appeal to christians who may not be gamers? Either way, not a huge demographic when it comes to games imho...

 

[L-J-F]

Because "mythology" (I'd like to see you tell the big hairy norseman with the axe standing in front of you that his religion is a "mythology" lol) is cooler than any contemporary religion - science has already erased any chance that any of the stuff in the old religions could possibly exist and there's too much seriousness about the new religions.

Think about it, what mythological universe would you rather play in: the one with all the monsters and bickering gods and heroes or one of the newer mythologies that are basically size competitions - "yeah well MMMYYYyyy god is infinitely powerful and has always existed and could destroy YOUR god before he existed even, huh!" - "Yeah well MY god is the SAME god, you've got it all wrong! Your prophet was good and all but now mMMMYyyy prophet is the true one with the PROPER message!"

......... boooooooorrrriiiiing.

And that folks, is why there aren't any good bible games, or Quranic games for that matter.

Edit: As for the kick-ass bible quotes ... something tells me that if portraying a group of terrorists attacking an airport as a terrible thing goes down badly (see MW2), then portraying killing a bunch of innocent children as a GOOD thing simply because they called you names and saying that god approved of such action probably won't go down too well either, just saying.

 

[PopeJewish]

The Bible is muddled with contradictions, obscure metaphors that only applied to politics at the time, filled with mistranslations, genocide, pornography, and crap that by modern standards is amazingly sexist and downright offensive.

Actually, that sounds like the makings for a pretty damn good game. Just throw out all the stuff about hating on rich people and we might have something here.

 

[Burningsok]

Let me stop you right there, the reason they're aren't any Bible games(that you know of there are plenty) is because the Bible is clear. Mythology not so much which is why game creators use it as a free idea bin. The Bible being straight forward provides explanation unlike mythology.

Clear?! LOLWUT. You'd need a team of 27 theologians just to understand which bits are metaphor and what "context" the verses could possibly be in that makes them ok.

My theory as to why all bible games have been terrible:
The Bible itself is terrible. Poor source material.

Whatever you say paperboy, cause darwin was oh so clear!

It's not that the bible is terrible it's just people read about 20 pages out of the hundreds of pages and think they got the whole thing down. Obviously they are ignorant of the fact that you have to read every single page of the bible in order for anything to make complete sense. Since the Bible has some much in it, there is a lot of material that can be taken out of context and or looked at the wrong way.

 

[daskat]

Are there games about the bible?. Never knew about them till now. Must be cause i'm an atheist.
Beside that i think the same reason that there isn't many good games about the bible is the same as for movies about the bible. It's a touchy subject. The bible have many epic stories with massive battles between kingdoms, global cataclysms, sex and even gore, but also making a movie (or a game) about the bible is the bigest magnet on the industrie to atract censorship. Dont know any game about the bible but i can put an example in the field of a movie about the bible, jesus christ super star. For me is a movie as lame as hair spray, with as much controversie as backyardigans but for many christians is a terrible movie and they still think that i would be banned from everywhere at all cost.

 

[thiosk]

The reason bible video games generally suck is the same reason that movie videogames suck.

They are about the bible, and about the movie first, rather than being about the game first.

For some reason, all I can think of is the following:

 

[Lullabye]

Perhaps it's also that a good deal of people are moving towards becoming Atheist or otherwise not part of the main, big religions. Because of this, making a game about the Bible wouldn't go down too well with this growing majority and the game wouldn't sell to well.

This may be true. But I'm not exactly a follower of Greek mythos, yet I still greatly enjoyed God of War.

Maybe what they should try is to make a game based on an Atheist version of the Bible(doesn't make sense, I know). Saying what actually happened assuming "God", you know, doesn't exist.
Take David and Golaith for example. God teaching us a lesson, or actually just a lucky pebble through the eye?
Or maybe they could take the stories Jesus told, and make you play more epic versions of them.
The Good Samaritan for example.
Help a guy in a ditch? Booooring.
Help a guy in a ditch fight off some bandits, maybe a tiger or two? Sure, I'd play that.

 

[Weaver]

Well all of the bible games AVGN reviews were by Wisdom Tree. If a dev team sucks a dev team sucks