To Play or Not to Play (Optional Post- Just for Fun)

This week’s article, “The Play is the Thing” brought up the idea of it being appropriate to portray the passion of Jesus in film, but not video games because in games, the user or gamer is more active towards deciding what happens to the avatar within the game. Why is it such a big deal to have a game that portrays the events of Jesus life and that involves playing him as a character? God of War is a video game in which you play as Kratos, who slaughters everything to kill Ares and eventually become the God of War himself in the sequels. The game is based off of pagan Greek mythology and it is just a blood bath of fun. Why is it that we can play games as a pagan god, but not ones as Jesus or Mohammad? Perhaps the reason can be based off the interactivity, but I think narrativity plays a bigger role. It is alright to play as a Greek god because the Greek mythology is about honour, war, idols, sacrifice, heroes, worship, etc. Each god has a number of different stories about themselves, so it would be fine to base a video game off an interpretation of one of those stories. Christ’s life on the other hand has a certain lay out of events, even if there are some differences between the gospels. Christianity is about Jesus’ sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins unlike Greek mythologies praise of humanistic characteristics. However, I don’t think there could be anything wrong with a Jesus video game as long as the same conclusions arise as seen in the gospels such as the crucifixion and resurrection. Being Jesus in a game and allowing him to upgrade in each level as you progress throughout his life would be interesting to see; almost like neo in the matrix or Dante in the Inferno or Jedi in Star Wars. As the character gets stronger, they move closer to their ultimate goal, whatever it might be. In Jesus case, the game could end with a crucifixion level, where Jesus could battle the devil or something on a platform/lair in his mind, showing him beat evil and leading to his resurrection and triumph. The story of the gospel still gets across and what actually happens doesn’t change. The only thing added is the events in between the lines that that would spice up the game’s appeal. Dante’s Inferno and Greek mythology have so much opportunity to be games because of all the images found within them and how they are about journeys. Jesus life was also a journey with many interesting aspects that could be altered slightly into making a game, while still sticking to the main points of the story. Essentially, the appropriateness of taking Jesus’ narrative is what would decide if a Jesus game could be made and based on my opinion, I would see no harm in there being one with proper guide lines being follo

Now imagine a Jesus version of all this..."The Path of Jesus", "Son of God", "The Holy One: Salvation"... YOU DECIDE!