Offering up an interesting premise with an underlying message that millions of believers see as actual fact, Left Behind: Eternal Forces is a tough game for an ex-churchgoing heathen like me to review fairly. On one hand, as a fantasy-themed real-time strategy game it offers up some commendably intriguing ideas and a surprising amount of depth in its many character profiles, along with a primarily non-violent approach to gameplay. On the other hand, unless you subscribe to an eschatological worldview, the overall tone of the game's message might come off as questionable proselytism at best.

While you can play and probably even enjoy Eternal Forces from a detached viewpoint, it's impossible to ignore the fact that a whole lot of people out there believe the views espoused by this sect of Christianity. Sure, you could say that the company is merely releasing a game based on their popular series of fictional post-apocalyptic novels that tells an engaging story with memorable characters and a positive spiritual message. This sort of superficial preaching to the choir will no doubt insure that the teen and up believers (or anyone else who's curious) find this completely compelling. However, given that the game comes bundled with a copy of the first LB book, it's an eye-opening bit of active marketing that less open-minded gamers may find off-putting.

Eternal Forces mines the Book of Revelations for its main themes, casting you as the leader of the post-Rapture forces in an ongoing battle against the Antichrist. You're tasked with converting as many of the remaining neutral innocents as possible and, in true RTS fashion, evil will be trying to do the same to swell its ranks. The story unfolds in chapter form and it does have a certain pull to it. However, dig deeper and you'll see that the version of good and evil is a bit rudimentary on one level and insulting on others. For example, the Antichrist uses an organization called the Global Community Peacekeepers as a front for its evil activities, but the game seems to say that anyone with a liberal or sectarian viewpoint is against your side, no matter what good works they do. If this is supposed to be a subtle commentary on how other religions or non-believers use subterfuge to push an agenda, it's also pure hypocrisy. Given the true agenda of the folks behind the game, despite spreading a positive moral message they feel is missing from other games, just slapping fake characters onto your worldview and calling it fiction doesn't work very well under scrutiny.

Where Eternal Forces does a great job is in the loads of biographies for what would normally be throwaway units. Granted, some of the bio information is strangely comical, but you end up caring about each character under your command. Sadly, there are far too many other characters that might be seen by some as astonishing stereotypes. If Eternal Forces had a sense of humor about itself (as many RTS games do) it may have worked a bit better. Wait until you see the soldiers on both sides of the conflict - your forces are goody-good types in matching sensible outfits who happen to be all white, while the Antichrist gets rappers, rockers, ethnic minorities and other impure undesirables that need to be quickly converted to the one true faith. While male and female units can be improved and given new jobs, female recruits on your side are given limited options in terms of career choices, lending the proceedings an even more subtly condescending tone. The result is that Eternal Forces feels dated in terms of how it presents people in the context of modern times. Even if you're not offended by this because 'it's only a game,' it chips away from the moral shell, unless of course you subscribe to this worldview.

As for gameplay, I'd be willing to forgive my pesky prejudices if Eternal Forces made up for its constant messaging by being enjoyable to play - but you'll need the patience of a saint, the reflexes of a guardian angel and godlike concentration in order to succeed! Initially you build banks, cafés and training centers in order to generate cash and places for your flock to converge. Recruiting new members is simple at first, as is sending them out into the evil city to convert innocents. However, pathfinding (a key function to a good RTS) seems scattershot at best. You find yourself constantly redirecting units around stationary objects, vehicles and even each other, which makes for a lot of frustration. Meanwhile, the Antichrist is doing his own resource gathering and recruiting, using his devil music and devious teachings to trick your followers into giving up their faith. The key to surviving temptation is prayer, but you're forced to do this so much that if you're not a believer then you probably won't want to become one!

You need to have your guys and gals praying literally every two minutes or so, something that stops them in their tracks no matter what they're doing. Since you're playing in real time, the deadly combination of a massive 3D cityscape, multiple units that need to be managed as individuals and constantly moving Antichrist forces end up making the first few hours of gameplay quite frustrating. If you can click on multiple units to make them move then why can't you click on them to get them to hold a prayer meeting, thus boosting their resistance for a longer period? You're also allowed some Hero units that should technically be more powerful against rap lyrics or a sexy shimmy, but these guys fall under the sway of evil faster than a crack addict hitting the pipe does. [You know what they say - the more faithful they are, the harder they fall! Ed]. One minute you're checking on some of your troops a few blocks away then, boom - you lose the game because you hero heard someone warble some garbled lyrics and fell into the clutches of Satan. [Well those Pussy Cat Dolls are impossible to resist… Ed].

One thing that's handled excellently is the reward/punishment system. Converting innocents or Antichrist forces gives you two points of much needed Spirit, while killing them deducts one point. While you're not at all encouraged to go out and kill anyone, there's a 'when push comes to shove' element that allows you to build up a military force and defend your followers if need be. Even then, it's prayer and choir singing first and foremost before you pick up arms but there's still a weird vibe happening. You have to wonder what Gandhi would think of a game like this, but I'll leave that to the more scholarly types - I'm just a lowly reviewer. Anyway, there's no blood flowing in the streets or gore here and you can lose many followers and, eventually, missions if you go all Rambo on the Antichrist's troops. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil indeed…

Amusingly, I'm wondering if the reason the game is so hard is because LB Games was trying to show how difficult it is to keep the faith and live in this wretched world full of evil at every turn. If that's not the case then the RTS genre was the wrong one to enter the market with, methinks. If they wanted to do a strategy game that more people could get into then it would have been smarter to do a turn-based strategy/RPG that perhaps used games like Civilization, or more simplistically, Fire Emblem as a template. These two series coupled great storylines and memorable characters with top-notch gameplay and if you're going to use an idea then you may as well borrow from some of the best games out there. As it is, too much time is spent in trial and error gameplay that becomes incredibly annoying, particularly when even the RTS genre has evolved into one where expectations among gamers is high right from the start.

Eternal Forces is a mixed bag when it comes to presentation; the huge NYC depicted here looks nice upon first glance, but other than some great shadow effects on the buildings and a solid sense of scale, you won't be impressed unless you're not a gamer and this is the first RTS you've seen. The characters are well animated and there are some nice special effects for the Spirit powers, but you'll need to play around with the camera angles for much of the time in order to keep track of your units. The interface is easy to navigate and use, even when the AI is giving you problems. As for the sound, the environmental effects are decent but the voice acting is mostly painful to listen to and often repetitive to the point of distraction. The game requires some hefty system requirements for its average visuals, which is a bit disappointing - not that I was expecting a software mode or anything, but I'd imagine LB Games would have wanted as many people to play their game as possible, rather than offering up a first installment that is problematic right out of the box.

While the score is moody and well done, Eternal Forces is also oddly contradictory in terms of its licensed music. You'll hear an assortment of Christian rock acts throughout between missions, with a convenient 'buy' button onscreen that zaps you to an online store. Given that most forms of popular music were seen as the 'devil's music' for decades until the realization that lyrics are more of a factor than rhythm, it's hard to see anyone other than a believer buying any of this music. Naturally there's disposable income to be had amongst some of the flock, but there's a creepy capitalist tinge to this, along with the load of advertisements that show up on buildings. There are more EB games banners here than there are stores in New York City, that's for sure…

There's also an online mode, but there's not much of a following at the moment for it. A friend of mine dropped by during one attempt to find someone playing and after about a half hour or so of hanging around trying to host or join a game, he said "Well, maybe the Rapture happened and they all went up to Heaven," which had me falling off my chair in hysterics. According to the book, things generally get back to normal here on Earth once all the true Christians vanish, so I'll be on the lookout over my shoulder for the GCP to come knocking on my door. I've got a baseball bat in the hall closet just for such occasions, so I guess I'll take the Spirit Point loss. Finally, there are a bunch of technical issues from crashes to save errors that forced me to replay parts of the game that had given me grief, so I'm hoping that a patch shows up for those who want to purchase this and not have the same problems.

Left Behind: Eternal Forces is a project begun and completed with what could be seen as a misguided view of the industry. It seems as if the game is a response to the Rockstars or id Softwares of the world and their games, or more precisely, how LB Games imagines these titles promote a 'negative' message. The problem with this train of thought is that it's easily derailed by simple fact. Entertainment by itself doesn't promote or condone violence unless the end user is unbalanced enough to see such a message in someone else's creation. Game companies make games to make money and, occasionally, an artistic statement that's not necessarily going to be everyone's cup of tea. That's where ratings, parental responsibility, dialog and of course personal choice come into play. Thematic material in the majority of videogames is there to serve the story, not to create real-life monsters out of a small amount of impressionable children or young adults who need to find other outlets to release their negative energies. As for the underlying spiritual elements, in a way it's like going to see Battlefield Earth and getting a Scientology pitch lobbed at your head when all you wanted was popcorn and a mindless movie for a few hours. Since this looks like the first part of a series of games, I'm hoping that any future installments decide exactly what they want to be and fix the elements that need work. As it is, this one is an unusual conversation piece, packaged with a book that you may or may not like, depending on your reading tastes.

Reviewed by Greg Wilcox for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).