The "General Games Chat" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
Playing God allows you to control the world, the environment and most of all, people. Games like “The Sims” or “Populous: the Beginning” may seem like harmless fun, but there are certainly some negative effects on the gamer and on society.
Many years ago, citizens used to be ‘God fearing’ and believed God caused anything and everything, both good and bad. God was the most powerful being in existence. Is it justified to cast your average Joe Bloggs to play God to a world of innocent pixelated characters? I believe not. A position of a God is one that should require enormous power and a divine right, does Joe Bloggs have this? No. I, myself, am no a Christian, or in fact a religious person. I can though, sympathise with religious people who think giving anyone that can cough up £35, the chance to play the role of the heavenly father, is actually a negative thing.
Another negative effect is people who are lead to pillage and crush villagers and cities as they see fit are, perhaps involuntarily, put on a power trip. This, for most people, is all right, but there are exceptions. The power can go to a person’s head and make them feel as if they are something incredible, an object of divine entity.
Lets take a look at the games and their possible effects…
The Sims: -
Perhaps the worst offender of them all. It is like a cyber pet only you can see it suffer before its life meter is diminished. You as the gamer are in control of a person or people known as ‘Sims.’ You can render your Sim, as God does in the Bible, as you see fit. You then control the Sims entire life, surroundings, job, love life and anything else you want to. You can starve your Sim, cause it grief, make it fight for your amusement, or even drown it in a swimming pool. This pushes the limits because life and death is literally in your hands.
This game, I have been told, is very addictive. Been addicted to controlling your Sim, cannot by any means, be a good thing. It is a craving for power and can perhaps lead to you losing control in your own life ensuring you Sim is in the mental and physical state you require.
Populous: -
Populous sees you literally ‘play God.’ You are a the ruler of your villagers are you build your religion against other rival religions and fight to the death until you are the one and only God left. You have power over which of you followers does what. You can build churches in your own honour or send all of your minions to destroy another civilisation.
This game places the gamer in a position of divine power. This is fair enough for most gamers however the less mentally stable amongst us may get confused with the slight yet subtle difference that keeps computer games and reality separate. Have you ever seen someone in your local city centre bawling “I am the chosen one, bow down to me”? No he isn’t a psychopath or a drunkard; he is someone who has had an overdose of Populous. Still, you should throw pennies at him and steal his hat.
Sim City: -
Sim City, a milder offender than the two above, but still one of the offenders. You take control of a city and build it from scratch. Everything is done as you, the cities overseer, see fit. Once you have you city all made how you want it, you can sit back and enjoy the view, but oh no, you can also take on the role of the vengeful God. You can send hurricanes, start fires and cause your citizens to run amok. This can be paralleled to God starting the plagues, something that no ordinary has the power or right to do. Fair enough, if you created the world then surely you are entitled to a plague here and a hurricane there, but Joe Bloggs didn’t create the world, he didn’t even create a city, therefore has no right to inflict disasters upon the pixelated public of his town.
Age of Mythology:-
You play the ruler of your little pixelly village and make them worship you to get a sense of divinity. The more they worship you the more you love them and the more you favour them the more you will give them the power the overtake over religions and batter other Gods. This is against the Christian rules [Do not worship false idols]. I think when God said that he might well have meant it including the little guys in video games too!
The different Gods go head to head as if it was a religious version of celebrity deathmatch. Different Gods can strike people down for no apparent reason and this, surely, is a very bad things.
Black & White:-
The game in which you ARE God. You build villages to gain the respect of people and consequently gather an army of followers. With this divine power you kick the crap out of other Gods in the area until everyone in the land praises you or is very much dead. This is not the message of any religion (Honestly Saddam!), followers are gathered because they go to heaven, not to build up a fanatical army and claim the earth for their own.
Black & White is the ultimate power trip and any player will get gratification from being worshipped by animated cavemen, but the gave takes blasphemy to a whole new level and contradicts many religious teachings.
Overall my view is that playing God in computer games can be a negative thing and challenges the power of religion in a modern day society. The general public aren’t likely to turn into a blasphemous psycho but it does create power trips, which cannot be a good thing. The craving for power and control is steadily increasing and if it doesn’t halt, then something drastic like the government being overthrown is going to occur. Not that it would be such a bad thing though…
Thank you for reading
-Kyz22-
Many years ago, citizens used to be ‘God fearing’ and believed God caused anything and everything, both good and bad. God was the most powerful being in existence. Is it justified to cast your average Joe Bloggs to play God to a world of innocent pixelated characters? I believe not. A position of a God is one that should require enormous power and a divine right, does Joe Bloggs have this? No. I, myself, am no a Christian, or in fact a religious person. I can though, sympathise with religious people who think giving anyone that can cough up £35, the chance to play the role of the heavenly father, is actually a negative thing.
Another negative effect is people who are lead to pillage and crush villagers and cities as they see fit are, perhaps involuntarily, put on a power trip. This, for most people, is all right, but there are exceptions. The power can go to a person’s head and make them feel as if they are something incredible, an object of divine entity.
Lets take a look at the games and their possible effects…
The Sims: -
Perhaps the worst offender of them all. It is like a cyber pet only you can see it suffer before its life meter is diminished. You as the gamer are in control of a person or people known as ‘Sims.’ You can render your Sim, as God does in the Bible, as you see fit. You then control the Sims entire life, surroundings, job, love life and anything else you want to. You can starve your Sim, cause it grief, make it fight for your amusement, or even drown it in a swimming pool. This pushes the limits because life and death is literally in your hands.
This game, I have been told, is very addictive. Been addicted to controlling your Sim, cannot by any means, be a good thing. It is a craving for power and can perhaps lead to you losing control in your own life ensuring you Sim is in the mental and physical state you require.
Populous: -
Populous sees you literally ‘play God.’ You are a the ruler of your villagers are you build your religion against other rival religions and fight to the death until you are the one and only God left. You have power over which of you followers does what. You can build churches in your own honour or send all of your minions to destroy another civilisation.
This game places the gamer in a position of divine power. This is fair enough for most gamers however the less mentally stable amongst us may get confused with the slight yet subtle difference that keeps computer games and reality separate. Have you ever seen someone in your local city centre bawling “I am the chosen one, bow down to me”? No he isn’t a psychopath or a drunkard; he is someone who has had an overdose of Populous. Still, you should throw pennies at him and steal his hat.
Sim City: -
Sim City, a milder offender than the two above, but still one of the offenders. You take control of a city and build it from scratch. Everything is done as you, the cities overseer, see fit. Once you have you city all made how you want it, you can sit back and enjoy the view, but oh no, you can also take on the role of the vengeful God. You can send hurricanes, start fires and cause your citizens to run amok. This can be paralleled to God starting the plagues, something that no ordinary has the power or right to do. Fair enough, if you created the world then surely you are entitled to a plague here and a hurricane there, but Joe Bloggs didn’t create the world, he didn’t even create a city, therefore has no right to inflict disasters upon the pixelated public of his town.
Age of Mythology:-
You play the ruler of your little pixelly village and make them worship you to get a sense of divinity. The more they worship you the more you love them and the more you favour them the more you will give them the power the overtake over religions and batter other Gods. This is against the Christian rules [Do not worship false idols]. I think when God said that he might well have meant it including the little guys in video games too!
The different Gods go head to head as if it was a religious version of celebrity deathmatch. Different Gods can strike people down for no apparent reason and this, surely, is a very bad things.
Black & White:-
The game in which you ARE God. You build villages to gain the respect of people and consequently gather an army of followers. With this divine power you kick the crap out of other Gods in the area until everyone in the land praises you or is very much dead. This is not the message of any religion (Honestly Saddam!), followers are gathered because they go to heaven, not to build up a fanatical army and claim the earth for their own.
Black & White is the ultimate power trip and any player will get gratification from being worshipped by animated cavemen, but the gave takes blasphemy to a whole new level and contradicts many religious teachings.
Overall my view is that playing God in computer games can be a negative thing and challenges the power of religion in a modern day society. The general public aren’t likely to turn into a blasphemous psycho but it does create power trips, which cannot be a good thing. The craving for power and control is steadily increasing and if it doesn’t halt, then something drastic like the government being overthrown is going to occur. Not that it would be such a bad thing though…
Thank you for reading
-Kyz22-
Page:
bloody well done kyz!
Good one - you neglected to mention the excellent Mega Lo Mania but I can forgive you for that minor oversight...nice work!
Gah.
I am amazed.
I won another GAD
AND
Gameaday was updated on a Tuesday!
It doesn't get any better than this :-)
I won another GAD
AND
Gameaday was updated on a Tuesday!
It doesn't get any better than this :-)
Great post there - well done on the GAD!
Congrats on another GAD there Kyz. Well earned mate!
verrr' nice young hove
I love playing god in Actraiser, superb game.
Great post, extremely enjoyable read :-)
Great post, extremely enjoyable read :-)
Parr wrote:
> No let me thank you. For that was the best thing I have read all day!
likewise... although the only other thing ive read today is a text message, not taking the greateness away from the posts or anything... just saying -_-
> No let me thank you. For that was the best thing I have read all day!
likewise... although the only other thing ive read today is a text message, not taking the greateness away from the posts or anything... just saying -_-
> Thank you for reading
No let me thank you. For that was the best thing I have read all day!
No let me thank you. For that was the best thing I have read all day!
Page: