Talk2Action continues it’s widely read series on the Left Behind game being marketed by Tyndale in the US.

Before I get to that, you might want to check out Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion. Richard takes a look at the company behind this game by following the trail through the Security Exchange Commission. Making money makes strange bedfellows. From Manic Miners to End Times Video Game Bonanza.

In Who’s Watching the Boys Jonathan Hutson takes a look at the culture of game review and the fact that this October game release is using embedded ad software that tracks  you - the gamer.  
He also takes a compassionate look at a group of evangelicals in an online community that genuinely believe we are in the end times, and that the rapture is going to happen as Tim LaHaye believes. He points out their genuine dismay at this game, at the marketing and excuses being made and at their hurt and concern about this portrayal of their beliefs. And rightfully so, for after all, this is a demographic Tyndale is targeting for this and future games.

The culture and theology aside, they may not take kindly to the Double Fusion technology in Left Behind: Eternal Forces.

Imagine: in one hand, you hold cold pizza or your favorite caffeine-loaded cola, while with the other, you command a Christian militia battling the forces of the AntiChrist. Times Square is ablaze with video billboards and piled high with the bodies of New Yorkers. A goat-footed, horned demon, (controlled by your 13-year-old Christian gamer buddy Mikey) emerges from a United Nations Humvee to feast on one of your snipers. But then one of your tanks gacks the demon in a big fireball — along with three nurses from the U.N. Now in a gnarlier game, there might be demon and nurse giblets hanging from the lamp posts, but in Left Behind: Eternal Forces, there’s no blood and guts, just dead bodies. (As Mikey might say, it’s kinda wack but whatev.) Apparently this cleanness makes the slaughter of New Yorkers who refuse to convert, somehow more Christ-like, just as when the Christian commandos shout “Praise the Lord!” after a fresh New Yorker kill.

But for now, the apocalyptic battle lulls. Across the battlefield, you spot a gold sportscar that crashed into a delivery truck for your favorite pizza parlor. Pizza boxes have spilled out, and cola cans are rolling around (time out: Mikey is hungry again). And on one of the Times Square digital billboards, there’s a mesmerizing video clip playing. It’s a promo for a PG-13 movie. The graphics are wicked good: flash video with radio sound. And it’s stupid funny. Your voice cracks as you laugh at the video billboard playing in Times Square above the gigantamongous pile of bloodless, dead New Yorkers. You watch the video play through its 15-second loop, unaware that this in-game ad is also watching you.