The year 2006 was a pretty good one for real-time strategy titles. It saw the release of new classics like Company of Heroes and great expansion packs for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Age of Empires III. Against such competition, a poor RTS like Left Behind: Eternal Forces would ordinarily be consigned to retail oblivion so fast, it's doubtful anyone would even remember it. The reason it resonates at all in the public consciousness is because of the nature of its "controversial" content. Left Behind is based on the series of best-selling fiction books about the seven years before Armageddon as described in the Bible's Book of Revelation. Yep, it's a game about evangelical Christians battling the forces of Satan, which is one of the few interesting things about this otherwise poor excuse for a real-time strategy game.

The irony of the game's content is that it really isn't terribly controversial. The game's storyline is about the formation of the Tribulation Force, an underground Christian resistance movement that spread the truth about a recent event in which 1/3 of the world's population vanished without explanation. The game's single-player campaign follows the foundation and growth of a Tribulation Force congregation in New York City and its eventual battle with the Global Community Peacekeepers, a renamed United Nations under the control of the Antichrist. As storylines go, it's interesting enough for non-believing gamers; it's hardly the most bizarre premise we've seen for a game. In fact, the major weakness of the storyline is that it sometimes seems watered down so as not to offend non-believers. Left Behind is based on biblical passages involving Death on a pale horse, oceans of blood and seven-headed demons rising from the earth, but none of that cool stuff can be found in Left Behind. Where's my fire and brimstone?


It's certainly not in the game's visuals. Left Behind looks bad from start to finish. While the developers went to the trouble of using actual images and logos from New York City on the game's buildings (you'll see Duane Reade drugstores, Loews movie theaters and even a well-known porn shop that, umm, a "friend" told me about), the buildings themselves are blocky, unconvincing and, worst of all, get in the way of the camera. They're also undamaged by explosions, although that's not much of a surprise given the pathetic explosions on display. Even the occasional appearances of demons from Hell don't liven things up. These are supposed to be Satan's vanguard, but their art design is pretty generic and non-threatening. I've seen more terrifying things in the West Hollywood Halloween Parade.

The other "controversial" aspect of the game is its explicit connection to evangelical Christian philosophy. Here too, the hysteria is seriously overblown. Within the game itself, the amount of proselytizing is kept to a minimum. Units bow their heads to pray in order to replenish their "spirit" resource and giving a unit orders may elicit a response like "For the Lord!" or "In His name!" Prayer scrolls with Biblical verses are also available as power-ups that can call down angels for bonuses, but anyone looking for explicit "Kill the unbelievers!"-style content to justify their fear of the game won't find it here. The biggest "message" portion of the game is actually the "Learn more" screens that become available after each mission. These display interesting text passages about the history of Christianity and CliffsNotes versions of aspects of evangelical theology while playing cuts from top-selling Christian musical acts (with a convenient "buy the album" link to the Internet). I'm not a believer, but I found the passages interesting. I also liked a lot of the music (albeit in the cheesily ironic way I enjoy Barry Manilow).