With the pope announcing his surprising retirement, the Catholic church and its followers are abuzz not just about the incident, but about who will take the position next.
With a wealth of candidates available though, there shouldn’t be much problem finding a suitable replacement, which is more than can be said about the spiritual world in video games where paragons of holy virtue and guidance are few and far between. In fact it’s quite the opposite as some of gaming’s greatest villains derive from the world of religion.
To show you how bad the problem is, here are a few of gaming’s most despicable religious leaders.
Important Note: This is in no way shape or form a commentary on any real religion or religious figures including, but not limited to, the pope or the Catholic church. This is just for fun.
Oh and spoilers. Spoilers are ahead.
Allegro Rasputin of the First Church of LeChuck – “Escape From Monkey Island”
The exact doctrines, words, and many basic day to day functions of the First Church of LeChuck are a mystery to many. It’s origins, however, are very clear as priest Allegro Rasputin was murdered by the ghost pirate LeChuck, and even made to view his still beating pancreas prior to death, while out at sea. Initially upset, the priest came to respect LeChuck for his capabilities and founded a church in his honor.
And what a church it is. Built into a volcano, and resembling a skull castle, the church has a river of lava flowing through it used in weddings so couples can become ghosts, and live together eternally, at the end of the journey. The rest of the church is a none too subtle tribute to LeChuck himself, and Rasputin’s primary goal is stopping the enemy of his deity, Guybrush Threepwood.
While not gaming’s deepest religion, for sheer tenacity, dedication, and even style, the Church of LeChuck is one of gaming’s most memorable religious institutions, and Rasputin’s devoutness to stopping our hero is equal to his faith
The Prophet of Truth of the Covenant Religion – “Halo”
It was “Halo 2” where gamers discovered that the hard fighting and no-nonsense alien enemies known as the Covenant were actually a deeply religious society with a strong sense of organization and hierarchy.
Atop that hierarchy are a series of prophets, and amongst those prophets is the clear leader, the Prophet of Truth. His mission is to lead his people in seeking out and activating the halo installations of the ancient, yet far advanced, people known as the forerunners. They believe that once the rings are activated, they will achieve a form of ascension and become eternal. They are actually aware, that while they have a slim chance of elevation, that completing this mission will more or less result in the complete destruction of every known thing.
Being a real fanatic is both the reason behind the rise to power, and the fall of the Prophet of Truth. While many villains have promised the end of the world or universe, few did it with the smug sense of satisfaction, and feeling of purpose as the Prophet of Truth.
Craig Markoff of Unitology –“Dead Space”
While the Church of Unitology’s primary figure is Michael Altman, one of the true spearheads of the movement is military man Craig Markoff.
A cleverly veiled allusion to Scientology in many ways, the Church of Unitology plays an integral role in the “Dead Space” series, and revolves around the fabled markers, which are artifacts of mysterious power. Formed in a time of dwindling religious beliefs, the church promoted a message of harmony and peace which caught on quickly and turned them into a real power. One of their principle ideas is not burying the dead, and instead keeping their bodies on spaceships waiting to be re-born. In reality, they are aware of the limited power of the marker to grant new and eternal life, though it often results in creating unspeakable atrocities. These incidents were written off as anomalies with manageable spiritual factors contributing to them.
A true and horrible evil in every way, Markoff is one of gaming’s great villains. He cleverly used Altman as a figurehead of virtue shielding him from the many, many atrocities he would commit, and his tenacity in refusing to waiver from his claims, is nearly unprecedented.
Morpheus of the Children of the Cathedral – “Fallout”
“Fallout” is full of religions, and while the nuclear bomb worshiping Children of the Atom get all of the attention, it is the leader of the Children of the Cathedral that gets my nod.
A servant of The Master (a downright terrifying mutant, human, computer hybrid), Morpheus is an old styled southern preacher who is clever, extremely charismatic, and downright volatile. Morpheus doesn’t believe The Master to be a god as others in the church do, but he has no qualms with using the influence of the church for his own means, and is a loyal servant of him all the same.
Much like Markoff, Morpheus is a pure evil as it gets, as his short temper and selfish ambitions only further his insatiable ego. It’s one thing to take advantage of people’s spiritual beliefs to further your own causes, but to do so at the end of world when all other hope has gone? Damn.
Sergius XVII of the Ormus Religion – “Xenosaga”
One of gaming’s greatest and most complex universes is that of the “Xenosaga” games. Fittingly, it also contains one of the deepest and most complex religions in all of gaming, the Ormus religion.
It would be impossible to sum up the religion entirely here, but it is spearheaded by the patriarch Sergius XVII and is actually an evolutionary offshoot of modern day Christianity. Their main objective is to recover the mysterious Zohar artifact, and use it to defeat the equally mysterious, and troublesome, Gnosis. Sergius XVII, also has personal ambitions to use this event to further the Ormus’s reach and influence, which is already considerable as the religion has power in nearly every meaningful aspect of society.
A victim of absolute power, it’s easy to write off Sergius XVII as simply “evil”, but his motives and intentions are instead a mix of the blindingly noble and the sadistically misguided. Because of this, he stands as one of the deepest, most influential, and in many ways the most realistically flawed of all of gaming’s evil religious figures, making him more memorable than the usual snarling types.
It’s not uncommon for good ideas to not translate into good video games. However, even in instances where creative games bomb spectacularly, they can still lead to very memorable experiences.
Even though we don’t have much to go off of regarding it at this time, it still seems like recently revealed indie RPG project “Citizens of Earth” is guaranteed to at least be a memorable experience as it has not one, but several very interesting ideas forming its basic blueprint.
It comes to us from developer Eden Industries who crafted one of those aforementioned brilliant, but flawed, games with their first title, “Waveform”, and has players taking the role of the Vice President of the World in his quest to rid his small home town of various weirdos and presumed evil doers. Now being a politician, and not wishing to get his hands dirty, the VP takes on a “team leader” approach and recruits denizens of the town to fight his battles for him. The character types range from body builders, to baristas, to homeless guys, and each not only brings unique attributes to combat, but when left out of your party, can provide certain abilities based on their character type with services like discounted items in their shops, town expansions, and exploration rewards.
Few specifics are known about the game, but it is confirmed that it will be much in the style of a classic JRPG, only with no random encounters (enemies will be viewable on the game world) and a combat system that will allow for battle restarts for party member swaps. Other than that, the games creator’s are sooner to talk about the broadstrokes and style of “Citizens of Earth”, and it’s easy to see why, as the game uses concepts from some of the greatest games of all time. It’s party leader influencing combat mechanic is straight from “Pokemon”, the expanded party, and their unique abilities, are reminiscent of the “Suikoden” series, it’s got a hyper Americana sense of character and environment design that reminds me of the artwork from “Fallout”, and best of all the entire game, from the humor, to the enemies, to the basic design, borrows heavily from my favorite game of all time, “Earthbound”.
No a great idea doesn’t always mean a great game, but when you are taking your cues from games that are both some of the greatest of all time, and in some cases the most criminally underappreciated, and using them to enhance what is already a unique story concept, you come away with something that stands on its own, and looks to be an always welcome breath of fresh air for the medium. In any case fans of classic RPGs, and bold games in general, should set aside time to keep an eye on “Citizens of Earth” as it progresses, and aims to start a Kickstarter campaign later this year.
It hard not to think of Obsidian as the “little brother” of the video game world.
While made up of competent and experienced developers, the company itself often piggybacks off of the successes of big brother development companies like Bethesda and Bioware, with titles such as “KOTOR:II” (someone remind me to do something about how much I hate that game…), “Fallout: New Vegas,” “Dungeon Siege III,” and “Neverwinter Nights 2.” While they’ve proven they have the ability to take the ball and run with it, they’ve yet to come up with something impressive of their own doing.
Of course if there’s one advantage to riding on the shoulders of RPG giants, it’s that you gain a real great lay of the land.
Which is why it’s so exciting that the company has announced a new independent Kickstarter project under the name “Project Eternity.” From what is known about the game, it looks to bring back the classic, western, isometric perspective RPG genre, complete with the traditional party based, paused combat system seen in some of the Bioware classics of yore. If you really want an idea of how much inspiration Obsidian is drawing for this title, you only have to look at their own description, which lays some serious hype on the game:
“‘Project Eternity’ will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of ‘Baldur’s Gate,’ add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of ‘Icewind Dale,’ and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of ‘Planescape: Torment.’”
If you’ve never played those games (shame on you) then let me assure you that is a tall task even for a group of aforementioned giant riders. It’s certainly an intriguing concept however, especially considering that the concepts presented in those games mentioned have influenced the RPG genre as much as any others, and this style of title hasn’t been done well in a long, long time. Throw in the fact that much of the Obsidian development team worked on some of those titles mentioned, and maybe you can understand why it’s time for classic RPG fans to start getting excited.
Obviously, when you’re trying to get people to throw money at something that you’d really like to do (which, by the way, quite a few people are already doing) there is an understandable tendency to exaggerate. That being said, though, I’m such a big fan of those style of games that I still want to see how close they can get to fulfilling their promise, and I’m willing to put aside my seething, blinding hatred of “KOTOR: II” to give Obsidian the chance to also prove themselves worthy as developers of independent properties.
If you head over to Adult Swim’s website right now, you’ll find an interesting teaser. Apparently, next week Valve and Adult Swim are going to be revealing a collaboration that they describe as “their video game peanut butter… our network chocolate” and “something that you’ll probably enjoy.” The picture accompanying the announcement makes it pretty clear that this is something “Team Fortress 2“-related, and speculation everywhere has it at everything from the long-awaited “Meet the Pyro” episode of the “Meet the Team” series, to a full-on new TV series based on the insanely popular online shooter.
Considering that “Team Fortress 2″ is one of the most purely entertaining games of all time, with a comic style and personality that is unmatched in its medium, and that those “Meet the Team” videos are some of the funniest things ever produced in relation to a video game, whatever comes of this announcement is sure be a bonafide success.
Personally, I’m hoping for a “Red vs Blue” style online miniseries.
It is odd, though, that video games and television shows are two mediums that don’t have much of a celebrated history, or anticipated future of collaboration. Video games made into movies have been a popular subject of discussion for years, but for some reason very few people ever consider the potential for games as TV shows. While “Team Fortress 2” might be the strongest argument for the games to series transition in the history of video games, the truth is that I think there are at least five other titles that would do very well in an episodic format.
“Fallout”
How It Would Work: Three letters. H-B-O. The world of the “Fallout” series is one of the most brutal, bleak and terrifying of all time. Around every corner waits a new horror and atrocity, and just about every person left has become a hardened bastard because it’s the only thing that’s allowed them to survive.
It’s the perfect world for HBO’s no limit programming.
More than the violence, though, this show would need HBO’s creative freedom to really showcase the ”Fallout” series’ biggest success, and that’s the world it takes place in. The 50s style atmosphere, mixed with the total apocalypse, is the thing that made the series stand out above all others, and it leads to some of the greatest dark humor in any medium. From the always gleeful “Fallout Boy” mascot to the incredibly inappropriate yet oddly fitting classic soundtrack, there is so much in this series that you wouldn’t have to change a bit of to make it shine as something truly unique and incredible.
What’s better is that you wouldn’t be stuck with the parameters of the series story either. There are so many tales waiting to be told that you could just borrow ideas from the established parts of the series and have more than enough foundation for even a mediocre script writer to build something truly compelling with.
In fact, with the possible exception of “Team Fortress 2,” “Fallout” is the series perhaps most primed for television. Just please… no Deathclaws. They scared me enough in the game already when I accidentally found Old Oney too early, and I certainly don’t need any more of them.
A close reading of the press information regarding the newest Fallout 3 DLC, Mothership Zeta, suggests it will be the last DLC for Bethesda’s revival of the classic. Actually, Bethesda’s website says that in plain language.
We’ve released the trailer to Fallout 3′s final DLC, Mothership Zeta. Additionally, Fallout 3 Lead Artist Istvan Pely has written a team diary discussing how the DLC came to fruition. Mothership Zeta will be available Monday, August 3rd on Xbox Live and Games for Windows Live for 800 points, and will be released at a later date for PlayStation 3.
So there you have it. Of course, there is the New Vegas expansion to look forward to some time next year, though that one’s going to be released by Obsidian, and only overseen by Bethesda. Still, you aren’t quite done with Capital Wasteland yet, are you?
