In a fit of madness I decided to try the game out myself. Big mistake.
Tibbles has been entirely correct in his previous posts. The game mechanics are obtuse, the micromanaging is annoying as hell, there's little cohesion in the game design and the graphics and music are poor at best.
There's very little to find good about the game. Even though it was free, I still feel like I've been ripped off.
Online is a funny story, it's actually got a very healthy community of players:
And by 'healthy', I mean non-existent. This was at about 3am GMT which is prime gaming time for the Americas. The fact it was only Tibbles and I playing the damn things just goes to show how poorly this game sold. The only two players are the ones
actively trying to mock it.
Then we found out this game has a censoring system! And as with all things in this game, it's shit.
Like most systems it just filters out all references to words like Fuck, Shit, Damn and so on - even if it's just part of a different word. References to Satan are curiously not censored.
If I should find one thing to like about this game, it's that you can direct units like the Medic and the Worship Leader - people who you'd expect to be fairly peaceful and non-violent, especially in the case of the medic - to
kick other units to death:
Unfortunately, I just missed the enemy unit, the AI deciding to garrison it in his building. But you can see Theodore Lightfoot and his merry band of God Botherers giving people a good kicking for Jesus.
One other "good" thing would be the terrible FMVs that are played through the game. They're so awful they're almost embarrassing to watch - especially when it's one of the campaign characters talking about setting up faith groups in vlog format - but at times they've got that Red Alert "so bad it's good" vibe.
The best part is how cardboard cut-out they make the villains - you literally see the bad guy soldiers storm a Super Secret Underground Church Circlejerk and then systematicly execute everyone with bullets to the head. Of course, the villains all wear black and have those full face helmets and the Antichrist is actually from Eastern Europe (They're still all commies aren't they?).
EDIT: I found the intro on YouTube!
All in all this game is a mess and it's not even a funny mess. It's just frustrating and annoying. What's worse however is that some of the ideas are fairly clever for an RTS - such as purchasing buildings and then setting their function - but it's all so poorly implemented and buried under so many layers of shit all they manage to so is just bring the game down even further.
To end, have the Commercial:
Jesus gives you the power to have ROCK OUT and have REALLY BAD SPECIAL EFFECTS!
And do gang members often carry Nunchaku around with them?
also, have a look at the video description:
Bull-fucking-shit. The only way it "show gamers the consequences of poor decisions." is that it shows you what happens when you make the decision to buy a Christian game. (Thanks to Tibs for that line :3 )
What's most annoying though is that this game has no physical CD I can burn to make myself feel better about playing it. Okay, well
it does, but I'm not going to pay
30 fucking dollars for this shit.
[Edited to add in the intro video above.]