GAMES
Saints
of Virtue (PC) from Shine Studios (available through Sunrise
Software, £19.99)
When an American Christian computer game bills itself "Finally,
a cool computer game for Christians!", you tend to wince, on
the basis that if it's actually cool, then it shouldn't need to announce
it, and many UK-based Christian teenagers who enjoy PC and console
games will treat it with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
But given all that, Saints of Virtue is quite fun, wholesome
and as satisfying as anything is going to be that combines a shoot
'em up with the standard RPG (role-playing game) format, and then
'Christianises' it.
The fairly sparse instructions introduce it this way: "Welcome
to the kingdom of the human heart ... a spiritual land deep within
a believer's soul. As a Saint of Virtue, you must put on the full
armour of God and do battle with the masks of humanity. Your journey
will be a long and difficult one, but God's Word will help you find
the way".
Your aim is to reach "the throne room of the heart" and
give Christ control of your life. To do that you have to battle through
various 3D environments populated by sinful nasties who you despatch
with your spiritual sword (blast 'em basically), and you unlock doors
barred with Worldy Wisdom by correctly using God's truth, which you
pick up in scrolls along the way.
There are the usual power-ups, weapons and shields to be found, plus
secret areas with additional bonuses.
The graphics are OK, but not of the highest quality, there's a chugging
Christian rock soundtrack to accompany you and the whole game will
keep your teenager (or you) occupied for many an hour. Unless my progress
is just showing up my feeble skills at this kind of game!
It's probably easier to play with a joystick or gamepad, than the
mouse and keyboard combination I used.
Clearly, if you have a teenager with a tendency towards gory shoot
'em ups or dodgy RPG games, this will at least give them essentially
harmless entertainment, and at most may give them fresh enthusiasm
for God's word. The explanations in the CD sleeve are a bit wordy,
mind.
But let's hope Christians can begin to pioneer high quality computer
games without having to simply adapt the world's stylings. Some will
feel the shoot 'em up element is a little too worldly, without the
wisdom.
Playability: ***
Value: ****
Quality: ***
Age group: 12+
Website: www.SaintsOfVirtue.com
PC requirements: Win95/98, 486/Pentium 133, 16MB Ram
The CFN Review team
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