Religious Themes in Video Games: Receiver

 

Been slacking off on these of late, so here's the next entry in this series on games that cover the often rather difficult topic of religion.

This one's a recent discovery of mine, and drastically different from the previous games I've discussed. Made in a week as part of an indie game challenge by a small studio called Wolfire, Receiver features some truly unique game mechanics and a covers a fascinating topic.

You see, Receiver is a game that allows you to experience what it's like to be in a cult.

Receiver

This is a game that takes a very subtle, minimalist approach to story, and I reckon it benefits from it greatly. You find yourself alone in a series of interconnected buildings and apartments with nothing but a handgun, a tape-player and a set of headphones. Scattered throughout this environment are tapes, telling you that you're special, that you have a great potential waiting to be realised. You see, you're what the beings speaking through the tape (oh, I did mention that they say they're from another dimension, right?) call a 'receiver', someone who is capable of hearing their message and has the chance to break free from the control of the Threat, another extra-dimensional race that has enslaved humanity through “media addiction”.

If you succeed in collecting all the tapes, you will become the first human to transcend to another plane of existence. The Threat isn't keen on this, and has released “kill-bots” into the area to murder you before you succeed.

It took me a bit to catch on to what the developers were trying to say with all this, but when the penny dropped it was a hell of a revelation.

Receiver isn't so much a commentary as it is an experience, and that's surprisingly rare in video games of this nature; it doesn't judge one way or the other whether the tapes are telling you a crock of shit or whether you really are a person on the brink of ascending to another dimension, instead just feeding you the information and letting you decide for yourself. It provides an insight into the mind of someone drawn in by a cult, the tantalising possibility that you really are unique in the world, that you have a destiny that will allow you to become greater than all others.

The nature of the gameplay helps to drive this idea forwards; you are alone throughout, with nothing but a voice on a tape-player as contact with other people. The enemies in the game are faceless machines, designed by the Threat to kill enlightened beings such as yourself. Just with this simple choice of design Receiver puts you in the mindset of a cult member, cut off and aloof from others, concerning yourself only with the words of your fellow believers.

The mechanics are a stroke of genius in-and-of themselves, but since that's not really the topic of discussion I won't dwell on them too much. Suffice it to say that I've played a lot of games with aspirations towards a “realistic shooting mechanics”, games that have millions of dollars pumped into their development, and Wolfire has topped them all with Receiver.

Cults are one of the scariest aspects of religion and faith, and so a game that can provide a means to understand those drawn in by such things is a valuable thing indeed. You can grab it on Steam or from Wolfire's website for just $4 at the moment, which is a steal as far as I'm concerned.

The gameplay is unforgiving, to say the least, but Receiver is worth playing just for the experience alone.

Religious Themes in Video Games: Dante's Inferno

And here we are for part three in this series on video games that discuss religious themes. You probably know the drill by now; head's up about potential spoilers and so on.

So let's get stuck in.

Dante's Inferno

Publishers don't often like to take risks with their big-budget releases; the amount of money that goes into a Triple-A title means that there's a lot to lose if sales don't go to plan, so often they prefer to stick to what they know works. Electronic Arts is particularly guilty for this approach, along with numerous other shitty business practices which have earned it the dubious title of 'Worst Company in America' in 2012 (and they're all set to retake their title again this year).

This is why it still surprises me that EA actually published Visceral Game's 2010 game, Dante's Inferno.

If that name sounds familiar, that's because it is; Dante's Inferno is a re-imaging of the first part of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Visceral have taken a few liberties with the story, admittedly; Dante is no longer a poet, instead depicted as a Templar knight who's sins during the Third Crusade have damned his beloved Beatrice to Hell, forcing him to descend into the many circles to save her

as a Templar knight who's sins during the Third Crusade have damned his beloved Beatrice to Hell, forcing him to descend into the many circles to save her.

Many critics of the time wrote this game off as a "God of War ripoff", and whilst this seems a little overly dismissive one can see where they're coming from; Dante's Inferno takes a lot of it's cues from the popular hack and slash title, and I'm by no means trying to claim that it's a great game.

What it most certainly is, however, is interesting, largely through the design and style Visceral imbued it with.

Dante's Inferno offers an unflinching and brutal look at the Catholic interpretation of Hell, and the art department behind this game deserve all their dues for not pulling any punches with it. Each circle is given its own uniquely fucked up aesthetic, and each is populated by a variety of infernal creatures that live up to the name of the circle they exist within. Blood, bile despair and all manner of messed up things are ever-present in this game, which really drives home the idea of the Christian Hell as a vicious and terrifying place.

Video games have the ability to bring to life some of the disturbing aspects of religion, and Dante's Inferno demonstrates this well.

As I said, however, there are still flaws to this particular depiction of religion. There's little discussion of the subject matter, no commentary; Dante simply hacks and slashes his way further down into the Circles of Hell, and whilst visually impressive it's a shame that more thought was not put into it.

A note to developers and publishers; when advertising a video game that covers religious themes, don't do this.

Publishing a game about the descent into Hell is a serious undertaking and requires a considerable amount of tact and maturity, things that EA sadly was incapable of supplying. Their marketing department's decision to run ridiculous hoaxes like fake religious protests about the game are baffling; I'm not sure whether 'juvenile', 'idiotic' or 'outright offensive' summarises the whole thing best, but whoever dreamed this stupidity up is in dire need of a slapping.

Nonetheless, Dante's Inferno remains an interesting game, willing to dive head first into subject matter most developers avoid like the plague. Visceral deserve praise for being willing to make such a game, and EA deserves credit for taking the risk of publishing it.

Religious Themes in Video Games: BioShock

And we're back for round two of this series on video games that discuss religious themes, chums. Just as a reminder these posts do contain some spoilers, so if you're not wanting anything revealed about these games I would recommend not reading further.

Otherwise, let's get started.

BioShock

BioShock is widely considered to be one of the greatest games of the last decade or so, and easily ranks up there as one of the best games period. A claustrophobic, creepy and extremely clever first-person shooter, it's a game that isn't afraid to be about something, to tackle big themes and issues in a mature, thoughtful and fascinating way that only an interactive experience can provide.

For those of you who've not heard of it, BioShock is for the most part a thinly-veiled satire and criticism of Ayn Rand's 'Objectivist' philosophy, which means that, for the most part, it's a game about philosophy and politics. Set in the Atlantic Ocean during 1960, it takes place in an underwater city created by a man named Andrew Ryan (like I said, thinly-veiled) as an Objectivist paradise. Ryan pursued this dream to the letter, aiming for a city where “the great would not be constrained by the small.”

All good on paper, but by the time the player arrives in this city, it's all gone to shit.

Oh, and the city is called 'Rapture'. Here's where religious elements come into play.

BioShock covers the topic of religion on several levels. On the surface there's the usual name-dropping and references; the name of the city itself is an obvious one, and the Biblical creation myth is referenced with ADAM, a plasmid that allows the residents of Rapture to perform superhuman feats... but is also highly addictive and the cause of many being transformed into monstrous beings called 'Splicers'. These Splicers, in addition to being creepy as all hell, can often be heard reciting biblical passages and singing hymns as they stalk the flooded halls of the dying city.

But this is just surface-level commentary, and BioShock isn't content just to stop there. It seeks an active, deeper discussion about religion and its many aspects, something one rarely finds in video games. Andrew Ryan is an atheist who seeks an Objectivist utopia, and it is made clear that he considers religion, particularly organised religion, an obstacle to this; in his introduction to Rapture he names the Vatican specifically as an enemy of his cause, depicting it as a thieving entity out to steal the toils of hard-working men in the name of god.

As such, religion is an unwelcome concept in Rapture, with holy books like the Bible banned. Yet despite its lofty ambitions, things don't quite go to plan; a two-tiered society begins to emerge in Rapture, the privileged with access to the incredible discoveries found below the sea, free to pursue their dreams and ambitions without oversight or restraint, and the less-privileged; the underclass who toil away to ensure the city continues to function, and who are repeatedly fucked over by Ryan's laissez-faire attitudes and desire for a society resembling an individualist's wet dream.

Blocked from gaining access to many commodities through legal means, a culture of smuggling flourishes amongst Rapture's underclass, and it becomes apparent that one of the items most commonly smuggled into the city are bibles; one can find them strewn around the city, particularly in the slum regions, and several audio recordings discuss them being brought in illegally. Ryan, naturally, is incensed, bringing in the death penalty against such smugglers whilst declaring that “any contact with the surface exposes Rapture to the very Parasites we fled from”, once again showing his vitriol towards religion and the religious institutions existing on the surface above (amongst other things, admittedly; Ryan has a major bone to pick with the US government and also the Soviets).

Here we see the game discussing issues such as religious persecution, and there's some deeper sub-text to all this that we can interpret. In Rapture, Andrew Ryan and his cohorts sought to create their vision of a perfect society, free from oppression and religion. In this, they failed; faith and religion found a way into the city despite their best efforts, as it provided solace and meaning to an underclass of the population they had failed. Attempts to stop this spread led to Ryan becoming the architect of religious persecution, executing those who smuggled Bibles and other religious idols into the city.

What this game has to say about religion, then, is that it is an intrinsic aspect of society whether one likes it or not; you can take it out of society, but you cannot take away some members of society's need for it.

I consider BioShock to be one of the best games I've ever had the chance to play through, ranking right up there with things like the Half Life series (give us Episode 3, Gabe), and if anything that I've just written sounds at all intriguing to you I urge you to pick up a copy and play it. It's easily acquired for a small price these days, what with two sequels on the market as well now, and I've only scratched the surface with this post in terms of what this game has to say.

It never ceases to amaze me that the game we shall be looking at next was ever even attempted, never mind published. A re-interpretation of a classic religious text, it's by no means the best game in the world but it certainly can be considered interesting.

Until next time, folks.

Religious Themes in Video Games: The Binding of Isaac

Okay, dissertation is over, a few more essays and exams to go, and then I'm finally finished with University. Which means my excuses to continue not updating this blog are now thinner than the evidence for Creationism (cheeky wee religion joke for you there, you're welcome), so I figure it's high time I got back on this horse.

So let's start with a subject that, as has previously been established, I'm a big fan of.

Let's talk about the discussion of religion in video games.

The idea for this post is owed in no small part to the awesome guys at Extra Credits, whose insightful analysis of video games and the video game industry is something I've been a fan of for a long while. A series of episodes they posted a while back covered a similar topic, and found that all too often religion is something video games shy away from covering or discussing.

Understandable, really, given how games tend to court controversy without attempting to ascend Mount Controversial by discussing faith and religion.

There are exceptions, however. And those exceptions are what I'd like to discuss here and in several other posts.

Before we get stuck in, I'd like to explain why I've selected the games I'm going to discuss. A lot of games have religion in them, gods and deities and their worshipers, all that shenanigans. That's been written about before, and whilst it is indeed an interesting topic it's not what I wish to cover here. In this series I'm hoping to discuss games that actually discuss religion and its many aspects, good or bad. Games that have something to say about religion, not just games that mention it.

Let me also flag up a spoiler warning; I'm going to try and avoid major, major spoilers but I will be discussing some aspects of these games that could reveal things you'd rather find out on your own. So yeah, just a heads up.

NOW LET'S DO THIS.

The Binding of Isaac

Edmund McMillen makes fucked up games. But with The Binding of Isaac, he really outdid himself.

Connoisseurs of Old Testament mythology might see where this is going already, but this game is a retelling of the biblical figure Isaac, who's father Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice his son to prove his devotion. Good, clean biblical family fun, the sort of thing the Old Testament does so well.

The Binding of Isaac (TboI) embraces the rather messed up elements of this myth, telling the story of the titular young boy Isaac whose mother believes she's heard the voice of god ordering her to murder her son. Chased down into the basement, thinks take a further turn for the disturbing as Isaac has to fight his way through a variety of Biblical-inspired monsters to ultimately free himself from his mother's murderous wrath.

The Four Horsemen show up as boss characters riding toy horses and are out to ruin your day. The Seven Deadly Sins are in the basement somewhere too, and they really live up to that 'deadly' part. Isaac can find items and weapons to help him stay alive, which range from things like the Bible to a crown of thorns. There are other elements and references in amongst all of this, don't get me wrong, but religion and the Old Testament are big focuses of this game.

This is a game that's unafraid to shy away from the disturbing aspects of many religious myths, and McMillen's ostensibly cutesy, cartoony art-style masks some really, really fucked up designs. Gameplay lends itself well to the themes TBoI seeks to discuss as well (namely religion and child abuse), because this game is brutally hard. Rogue-like elements ensure that if Isaac should die during his descent into the depths below his house (and he will die, a whole fucking lot), there are no save-points and no extra lives. If you're killed, you're going right back to the start.

TBoI's punishing difficulty and gruesome aesthetic means that not everyone will enjoy it, but given that you can grab both the main game and it's expansion, the Wrath of the Lamb, for just £6 (and it'll be even cheaper during Steam sales), there's much worse things to spend your money on.

Stay tuned, friends. Next post we shall be talking about a favourite game of mine. Rather than waffle about how great it is, I'll let it's introduction speak for itself...