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

[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.

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.

Oh, I love God of War, but I also love Greek Mythology despite my not 'following' it. I think Greek mythology is just more well known by all the mythology within it, but because no one actually practices that 'religion' people are much more accepting of the tales within it.

 

[PopeJewish]

... religious games can't be good because they must first, above all other considerations, be wholesome. Which means minimal conflict. Which means they can barely be games at all.

Have you actually read the bible? There's very little that's wholesome about it, especially the old testament. God telling the Israelites to go into Canaan and kill every man, woman and dog, and keep all the virgin girls for themselves, doesn't exactly reek of modern family values

 

[Catalyst6]

It's because people think that making good games is easy. "Well, so many games are produced, it must be fairly easy!"

Except it's not. And yet they try.

 

[slopeslider]

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.

I'd ask you to back that up but why bother, that's one of the unquestionable majority opinions around here, among;
Austalia is teh sux0rz for no r18 legislation ftl
Owbama said stern things about games oh noes
relijun iz teh liarz
We luv shock stories with no deeper information (Like the rape acquittal thing based on jeans topic)
if you even LOOKS at a torrentz you iz going to pirate hellz.
Gunz iz bad
Japanz be only tentacle hentai and raep iz how they say hellow.
I could go on...

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

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.

this

True, but short verses making a over arching plot don't happen.

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!

May I suggest you two stop right here, because causing a flame war is not what I intended. I intended to explain why games based on the Bible, no matter what your beliefs in said subject matter are, are terrible.

Anyway, ZPfanfatic, you got my point exsactely. A linear series of events that are controlled by God don't work well into the frame work of a medium where the player has to have a direct influence on what is happening.

 

[searron]

I think even despite the downer ending the story of Sampson could easily be converted in to an entertaining God of War style game. Think about, dude picks up a donkey's jawbone and proceeds to slaughter an entire army.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

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.

The reason they aren't know is that one, big time developers rarely to never make them, only obscure companies that have a very small budget, and two, they are all garbage.

 

[slopeslider]

... religious games can't be good because they must first, above all other considerations, be wholesome. Which means minimal conflict. Which means they can barely be games at all.

Have you actually read the bible? There's very little that's wholesome about it, especially the old testament. God telling the Israelites to go into Canaan and kill every man, woman and dog, and keep all the virgin girls for themselves, doesn't exactly reek of modern family values

You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons, or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods" (Deut 7.3-4).

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5767
An interesting read.

 

[Krion_Vark]

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.

Take the Bible for Guidelines of History and guess what it makes complete sense. Take it as fact and you get confused out of your mind. The bible is one of the only things that are of history prior to when we started writing things down and recording them. Also the bible is clear in what it says and that is why its not good game making material. I think the only part of the Bible that can be made into a game is the Apocalypse but even then you can only use it as guidelines and not go with it 100%. Take the show Supernatural for instance. It is using the Biblical apocalypse as a reference point for the main story arc but is not following it to a T.

 

[Heresy101]

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

You can't understand the basic premise of evolution by natural selection? It's pretty basic mate. At least evolution is generally interesting...ever hear of a game called Spore?

The Bible contains too many contradictions to make a game out of...the narrative wouldn't make sense.

 

[Caligulove]

I think its because they focus on trying to make them all wholesome and kiddy-teach-me-"good-values" whatever those are.

Theres some pretty messed up, badass shit in the Bible though... it could be one hell of a game.

 

[ResiEvalJohn]

Because people who make bible games obviously didn't major in Game Design in college; they majored in religion.

Therefore their games suck.

 

[Mcface]

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?

The real bible is actually very action packed.
There are a ton of battles with Moses and the Israelites. (sp?)

I believe they are too educational to be good. They make the game to focus on teaching people about the bible/god/jesus, rather than combat or actual puzzle solving, general gameplay.

 

[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.

I'd ask you to back that up but why bother, that's one of the unquestionable majority opinions around here, among;
Austalia is teh sux0rz for no r18 legislation ftl
Owbama said stern things about games oh noes
relijun iz teh liarz
We luv shock stories with no deeper information (Like the rape acquittal thing based on jeans topic)
if you even LOOKS at a torrentz you iz going to pirate hellz.
Gunz iz bad
Japanz be only tentacle hentai and raep iz how they say hellow.
I could go on...

back what up? that the bible is filled with pornography (exekiel 23:20, plus countless rapes), genocide (Joshua 6:17, slaughter of the canaanites, etc) sexism (Corinthians 11:3, 11:7-9, Ephesians 5:22 and countless other places). And the fact that it's been translated and translated again is just common fact, often being mistranslated. For instance the whole 666 being the devil's number thing, when the oldest copy of Revelations in existence says it's 616 (seriously, google it).

On the other note, guns are (generally) bad, religions are full of lies, but the average japanese person doesn't even know about tentacle porn

 

[PopeJewish]

... religious games can't be good because they must first, above all other considerations, be wholesome. Which means minimal conflict. Which means they can barely be games at all.

Have you actually read the bible? There's very little that's wholesome about it, especially the old testament. God telling the Israelites to go into Canaan and kill every man, woman and dog, and keep all the virgin girls for themselves, doesn't exactly reek of modern family values

You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons, or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods" (Deut 7.3-4).

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5767
An interesting read.

who said anything about marriage? Good ol' fashioned rape has nothing to do with marriage

edit: whoops, sorry for the double post m(_ _)m

 

[MortisLegio]

Other than the fact this has just become a Religion VS Evolution thread (though I dont think thats what the publisher intended)

A friend of mine (who is an Athiest) and I came up with a game "Based" around Samson where Samson (the player) goes around killing armed Philistines with a donkey's jaw bone

 

[ethaninja]

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.

What he/she said. Besides, I have a religious friend that yakks on about his belief, and it all sounds pretty boring. Not sure what type of game they would make. The Sims?

 

[KeyMaster45]

There are demons, but they don't get much light until say the book of revelations or Dante's Inferno (the poem, not the game)

You do realize that Dante's Inferno is not part of the Bible right? Furthermore many of the figures that appear in Dante's Inferno are borrowed from various mythologies(mainly greek though)and historical figures.