too funny

[congobongo]

Posted this over at the cgcc.ca but thought it deserved a wider audience. Someone passed me this link to "Christian" video game reviews. The more "evil" the game, the lower the score is. Ready for a laugh? Check it out:

http://almenconi.com/topics/games/reviews.html

[djbeatmongrel]

i remember that site, reading those reviews make me laugh. its a knee slapper reading that garbage LOL

[norkusa]

Thanks for posting this. This is my new favorite site. I love the conclusion for the Splinter Cell review:

"Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell receives a 61 (D) for the Lord's name being taken in vain over twenty times, some violence, and because the player is learning to become a trained killer. "

[RJ]

Oh...my...God. @_@

Guess I'm in trouble for my avatar...

[Shadysmurf]

Though highly entertaining, Halo (Combat Evolved) receives a 60 (D-) [See Rating Definitions] for being easily addictive, highly violent, and for glorifying violence. While we have no direct and specific evidence linking this game to the outcome exhibited by the DC Sniper, we do know that this was a game he played. We also know that players of this type of game can become desensitized to violence and exhibit a disregard for the consequenses of violent behavior. After many hours of game time, I can see that easily happening. Any person who plays Halo needs to be very wary of the violence inherent in the game play.

HAR rofl

[Oberfuhrer Hamm]

From the Age of Mythology review:

"ILLEGAL/HARMFUL MATERIAL
The only harmful content in this game comes from the presentation of gods and their powers as being real. Refer to the occult/supernatural section for more details. "

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

"Unfortunately, you can't win scenarios with everyone agreeing to make peace."

ROTFLMFAO!!! LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

This is from the review of Star Trek: Bridge Commander.

"LANGUAGE
There is one time that your first officer says the word "damn" in a state of agitation"

OMFG! The bitch swore. *Shock*

Adn to top it all, the review to The Sims complains more about the family albums on the website more than it does the game. Come on people, what are we reviewing here?!?

[Gamereviewgod]

Check out this one frm their Pokemon concern article....



CONCERN #3
To gain the competitive edge, a trainer must use magic potions to heal and strengthen his Pokémon, and wear magic badges to control the stronger Pokémon. In addition, the really powerful Pokémon have psychic powers and can throw curses. This bears disturbing similarities to witchcraft


How in the hell do you associate witchcraft with Pokemon??? Man, people like this piss me off.

[Gamereviewgod]

Oh, this one is my fave so far. It's for the Sims.


Parents should carefully scrutinize this game in the light of the scriptural warning in Colossians 2:8 that warns us that ungodly philosophies can undermine our faith in Jesus and the joy of our salvation. This game is very subtle in what it teaches and probably a lot more dangerous than a blatantly occult or violent game. Because it is presented as such a normal suburban lifestyle simulation, kids can come to believe that astrology, materialism, and unrestrained sexuality are normal adult behaviors. This Trojan Horse packs a lot more deceit than any other game I have played to date and earns a 50% (F) [See Rating Definitions] for Epicurean excess.

Epicurean excess??? Priceless.. LOL

[SoulBlazer]

I'm surprised they did'nt say anything about all the violence and racial sterotyping when talking about Bridge Commander. LOL

That's one of my favorite ST games they are complaing about, also...... :angry:

[E Nice]

It's nice for a quick laugh but we the reviews are for the like of people who went out and bought Bible Adventures and Super Noah's Ark 3D back in the day, not everyday people.

Oh as for the Pokemon/witchcraft thing, your own quote states it fine. It isn't saying Pokemon is but that it shows similar things as found in.

[hezeuschrist]

Grand Theft Auto Vice City is one of the most popular games out today and also one of the vilest I have ever played. Many games out today contain a great deal of violence and some language. Vice City has an above average amount of language, but what really contrasts it with other games is the blatant sexual content/nudity, which is the most I have ever seen in any game I have played. It is for all these reasons that I can't recommend this game for anyone.

Grand Theft Auto Vice City receives an 18% (F-) [See Rating Definitions] for an extreme amount of violence with blood, a multitude of profanities, and many sexual comments, actions and nudity.


YES

[Li Wang]

As in all violent games, killing people is seen as an acceptable action. Even though, in this game, you are fighting Nazis, nothing can ever justify taking the life of another person.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?

I love the letter that describes in detail the gameplay of GTA3, including how you get more "points" every time you commit a crime. Even if the game did have points, nobody has paid any attention to them since the early 90s, lady.

[ManekiNeko]

There's a movie review site called CAP which does essentially the same thing. They've got a different rating system but that's really the only difference.
What I don't get is this... why do fundamentalist Christians always have to kiss God's ass in everything they do? I'm sorry if this sounds sacreligious... I'm a Christian myself, and I'm thankful for Jesus's sacrifice, but I don't feel the need to be sycophantic about it. It doesn't make it any more likely that you'll go to heaven (refer to John 3:16 for proof), and frankly, it all seems a bit transparent to me.

JR

[WiseSalesman]

In Black and White, the strong occult/supernatural themes are sugar-coated by the fact that this game offers minimal violence, virtually no language, and no nudity/sexual content. However, it promotes the message that everyone can be a god, which rejects the truth of the one true God; this, in my eyes, is far worse than violence.

For its promotion of the idea that everyone can be a god with no repercussions for his actions, even for human sacrifices, Black and White gets a 30% (F-)

No repercussions? Someone obviously didn't play the game very much. Black and White had one of the most detailed systems ever for making you live with your choices. You couldn't even save to try something, and then go back. There were repercussions for every single action in the game.

[Daniel Thomas]

I don't get these people. What's the deal? I mean, really, what's your deal?

Why are right-wing fundamentalists always looking for secret conspiracies to warp their kids? Watch out, Elvis is shaking his hips and playing black music! Play the Led Zeppelin record backwards and hear the evil messages!

What color is the sky in their world? Didn't we just fucking invade another country? How's that gonna mess with their kids?

Heh. Funny stuff. I love the link at the top of the page: "Do you need your brain washed?"

[BigBoogie]

I am a true Diablo head. but anyway, in the nudity section, they complained about the skeletons being naked. I dont even think there is a joke I can make to add to that, that is not funnier than the statement itself.

[thegreatescape]

Am I the only one that was disappointed that there isnt a Kingpin review ? :D

From Evercrack review:

Even if normal game play is acceptable to some Christians, the addictive nature of this game can make it an idol. And when we put anything before God, then it becomes sin.

must. stop. worshipping....... the game. O_O

[Gamereviewgod]

OH MY GOD! I e-mailed him and stated that there was a post about his reviews from some hardcore gamers on this site. HE RESPONDED! This is an exact cut and paste...

Dear Matt,

Would you do me a favor? Would you please post the following on the link to the message board you sent me? Thank you. Al Menconi

Dear Game Fans,

Let me introduce myself. I’m Al Menconi, you know me as the idiot who publishes game reviews that you love to hate. I’ve read all of your comments and found most of them interesting. I found myself thinking that I hate being misunderstood, but I can understand why you are upset with me. I’m not a gamer and I don’t understand the gamer’s mentality. I would like to explain how we started writing reviews. Our ministry is specifically for helping parents communicate values to their children. When some parents asked for information about games a few years ago, one of our eager employees said that he could “download” beta copies and write reviews. Since I have never played a computer game since Pac Man, thought it would be fine. It turned out that John “stretched” and exaggerated some facts and was often judgmental in his conclusions. I was consumed with other aspects of our ministry and we ended up posting “less than acceptable” reviews. When John left, a young college student volunteered to help with reviews. Again, he expressed strong judgmental opinions. Recently, we were fortunate to have four mature experienced gamers join our staff to write solid and reasonable reviews. We decided to stop reviewing M rated games, because we couldn’t find any we could recommend. We are also in the process of standardizing our reviewing process and recently we have been going over each review to eliminate judgmental attitudes, exaggerations, and are desperately trying to find a balance in answering the questions of how much is too much and what is acceptable fantasy like Star Wars and what is an anti-biblical attitude like Diablo. We still don’t have all the answers.

I don’t expect you to like our reviews for a couple of reasons. We are concerned about violence, sexual content, anti-Christian attitudes, and profanity. Most gamers simply want to know if the game is fun and or exciting. And second our basis is the Bible, while most of our critics don’t believe in God. The thing that you need to understand is we aren’t judging or condemning you or anyone. We don’t think you are a sinner or going to Hell because you play games we give low scores to. Our reviews are NOT for the experienced gamer. They are for the inexperienced mother to help her understand the content of the games. I am a counsel, not a game reviewer. Reviews are a very small percentage of what we do. However, we are in the process of improving our reviews to be consistent and fair, but the experienced gamer still won’t like them. That doesn’t bother me and hopefully it won’t bother you either. If you don’t like our reviews, don’t read them. I never could understand why anyone but our parents would care about our reviews. The one thing that does bother me is many of you are blaming our inadequate reviewing on God and Christianity as a whole. It’s not God’s fault. It is mine and we are doing the best we can to make our reviews fair and balanced all the while still coming from a Christian perspective. Please forgive me for giving you a false image of who God is. God loves you and He doesn’t give a flip what games you play. He still loves you and He will never stop loving you. He will never judge or condemn you and it bothers me that our reviews give the impression that we are condemning and judging gamers. This is the misunderstanding that bothers me the most. If you would like to help us, please tell us which reviews are wrong and why they are wrong. It would shorten our correction process. Don’t waste your time telling me that games don’t influence you; that is not our concern at this time. We just want to be accurate, fair, and reasonable. If you feel a need to criticize do so without profanity, because my ISP will block your mail. If you are interested in reading our parenting articles here is the link. http://www.almenconi.com/topics/parent/ All of our articles are based on our understanding of the Bible, but I think you will be able to see that are basic purpose is to encourage parents to get involved with and to understand their kids. My email address is Al@AlMenconi.com. I will try to answer reasonable emails.

In His service and yours,

Al Menconi

www.AlMenconi.com

[omnedon]

Thank you Mr. Menconi. You've given us a clearer perspective on what the aims of your game reviews are, and their shortcomings.

It's the judgemental 'enthusiasm' that some Christians ( and Born again Christians) exude, that can very much work against the aims of your (and many other) church.

Thanks again for the thoughtful response.
:)

[XpOsUrE]

Posted this over at the cgcc.ca but thought it deserved a wider audience. Someone passed me this link to "Christian" video game reviews. The more "evil" the game, the lower the score is. Ready for a laugh? Check it out:

http://almenconi.com/topics/games/reviews.html

LOL, yeah and I taught the reviews on gamespot were usless in my view of games lol, this site takes the cake lol.

[SoulBlazer]

Indeed. That's a serious and well thought out response, and I give him a lot of credit for taking the time to explain where he and the site was coming from and that not everything was perfect.

I think I might just take him up on his offer and try to help some with the reviews.

And all I can say is, he better not play Xenogears. :D

[Stamp Mcfury]

And second our basis is the Bible, while most of our critics don’t believe in God.

I really think this is part of the problem with people like this man! If you don't see eye to eye with this definition of right or wrong you must be an athiest.

Like if I play a game like everquest or Final Fantasy that uses magic, that is occult to them by nature.

[omnedon]

Judging by the tone of the rest of Mr. Menconi's post, I'm not sure he meant it how you are taking it McFury. I can't be sure though.

[E Nice]

It took a personal response from the guy to figure out where he was coming from for those reviews and who those reviews were aimed at? x_x

[djbeatmongrel]

And all I can say is, he better not play Xenogears. :D

I can just imagine the scoring for this in the end of the review. I think it would go something like this...

Xenogears recieves for an F- (5%) for its misreprasentation of God. Xenogears presents God as a sort of machine/weapon of destruction that uses humans as the building block and has noe remorse for the human soul. It seems to glorify the murder of our creator and suggests extreme thoughts of organized defiance towards the word of the Church. I personally can not recommend this game to any Christian child.

[Stamp Mcfury]

Judging by the tone of the rest of Mr. Menconi's post, I'm not sure he meant it how you are taking it McFury. I can't be sure though.

I did not think the tone of his letter was rude and it was nice of him to respond,

but when he says

"Most of our critics don't believe in God"

That is making a statement to me. He may not have meant it to be, but he did say if your critical of the beliefs written on his site you probably do not believe in God.

And i think its safe to assume we're all gamers, and to hear games that we've loved for years be called things like "Occult" is kinda like watching your kid get kicked in the face at soccer practice. You can't help but feel a little defensive.

[Gamereviewgod]

Second reply....

Dear Matt,

As I stated in my response, game reviews have been a minor aspect of what we do. In the past I didn’t pay enough attention to the quality of our postings. We are in the process of “getting it right.” Don’t get me wrong. We are a Christian organization and our readers are very concerned about the sex, violence, and anti-Christian philosophies in so many games. We will continue to review from a Christian perspective, and I don’t expect your readers to be thrilled with our position. However, the basic Gospel of Jesus Christ is God loves you and He will never condemn you. We obviously haven’t been showing the love and grace of God through our reviews.

Since you are experienced in gaming, would you mind telling us where we are weak? Including your concerns about our position on Pokemon (basically, we believe this type of game is “training wheels for future involvement with occult). We are open to discuss and change ANY reviews we have. Our desire is to teach parents to teach their children HOW to think, not merely WHAT to think. We shouldn’t “stretch the truth” to teach the Truth.

Basically, we will try to continue our conservative position with love and respect for the gamer. Will you or any of your readers help us? Thanks for your input.

In His service and yours,

Al Menconi

www.AlMenconi.com

Come on guys, lets get some suggestions going here. He's obviously willing to hear the thoughts of the gaming community, an ever so rare situation. Post 'em here I guess...

[RJ]

Pokemon=future involvement w/ the occult.

:roll: x_x O_O

Wow.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the player THE GOOD GUY in Diablo???

YOU'RE FIGHTING EVIL!!!

[omnedon]

I wish I could help. I'm singularly unqualified in my opinion.

You see, the de-sensitization to violence doesn't seem to be working on me AT ALL. I consider DOOM to be one of the finest games ever made, period, for it's ability to immerse the player in a scary virtual world. I've killed more virtual imps and zombies than I could ever count. And then Quake! I developed carpal tunnel playing Quake online against avatars of other real people, gibbing them into bits and being gibbed literally thousands of times! All the while enjoying it immensely. I built a LAN in my home so I could share this virtual violence with my wife (and the horror) my KIDS! It became one of our "family time" activities!!

After years of this virtual bloodletting, the 6 o'clock news, and the newspaper can still bring me to tears. I read about a child orphaned by a drunk driver in my city, and my eyes can well up. I watch the news and see the aftermath of four young people joyriding at high speeds through my city, ending up wrapped around a pole, none of them older than 20. An utter waste of potential life and love. I turn on my TV on September 11th and weep as I witness people hurl themselves off the top of the WTC, out of utter desperation and lack of a better option.

So, you see, I must be some kind of freak. I dove into these virtual violent worlds hook line and sinker, and it didn't help. Real violence is still terrifyingly REAL.

There is evil in this world Mr. Menconi, and it lives inside us. I beleive while some churches chase the phantom demons, the real evil walks among us unchecked, except for those willing to face the reality of it.
:(

[SoulBlazer]

Ditto on what's been said about Pokemon. I love the games even though I don't watch the cartoons or play the card games. I have a good friend with kids now who is a devout Southern Baptist and she has no problem with letting her kids play Pokemon -- or reading Harry Potter stories.

And if you strip down every game down to it's very basic roots, I mean, it's VERY BASIC images -- what do you have? In all games?

A battle of good vs evil.

Even in games like Solider of Fortune, where you are fighting and killing the whole game, who are you playing? An American solider, a 'good' guy, aganist a army of the Nazi's, perhaps the most 'evil' people ever to exist on the face of the planet.

Is'nt fighting needed sometimes in order to perserve law and order on Earth? Can't people be willing to play and enjoy something -- if it's a game, a book, a TV show, etc. -- and understand the deeper meanings, the many points of view? Does'nt the Bible tell us to have understanding and compassion for everyone, regardless of where they are coming from?

I'll admit here that I'm agnostic in my views, but I do firmly believe in God and deplore the breakdown in our society of some of the Judeo-Christian values I don't see parents putting into their kids these days. After all, a love of what the Bible says (and I have read the whole thing) can -- and I'd dare say SHOULD -- be followed by someone who is even a atheist.

But video games and religion DO NOT MIX. Nor they should EVER, in my honest opinion. It's perfectly okay to not to want to play a game because of what you see going on in it.

But I don't think it's possible to review a game on anti-Christan principles alone. Because what one person may see in a game as the greates evil ever to exist another person may consider a classic and teaching good values.

Do you think Muslims are thrilled that a lot of new anti-terrorist FPS games have you fighting clealy Islamic men from the Middle East? That Jews are reminded in games such as Europa: The Guild how much they were picked on and hated back in the Middle Ages?

Someone is going to be unhappy with something all of the time.

I've rambled enough in this note, but I would say this to Mr. Menconi, lest he think that I was doing nothing but bashing him.

I admire what you are trying to do in helping parents figure out which games are allright for kids in a Christain lifestyle. And I also commend you for doing what so many parents seem unwilling to do these days -- parents NEED to take a active responsiblity in what their kids are doing. He asked us for some help and input -- I humbly suggest a following procedure:

that he toss out ALL of the game reviews, ask three to five people who you trust and share your beliefes to play a game (and a ENTIRE game, for several days, not just the opening), have each person write up a review, and then you take the reviews and condense them into a 'middle of the road' review.

The people you select need to be gamers and be open minded enough to play a game for several days, and try to finish it, or at least put in some time into it. Look at all aspects of the game but try not to over-analyze it. And by putting together all the reviews, you can get a blanced and 'fair' review of the game in question.

Some people here may have problems with how you are going about your objectives, Mr. Menconi, but I don't think anyone here is saying that it's a bad idea.

Whew. :D

[PentiumMMX]

Sorry I am bringing back an old topic, but I'm glad they did not F*** "Final Fantasy VII", "Kirby 64", "Dr. Mario", "Duck Hunt", "Zelda: Link's Awakening DX", "Street Fighter II", "Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles", and\or "Double Dragon II"! :D

But It ws funny about how they complaned about "Final Fantasy X-2"! LOL