After heavy metal and Harry Potter, Christian fundamentalists’ favourite whipping boy is the videogame industry. I’m not really sure why. Just because poor teenage Jesus only had backgammon to entertain himself doesn’t mean videogames lead straight to the fifth circle of hell where your innards are pecked out by devilish goombas after which you’re force-fed a health-restoring mushroom so that the pixilated torture can begin anew unto eternity.

But it turns out videogames can also be a mighty weapon in the religious war for the hearts and thumbs of today’s wayward youth. Last fall we saw Left Behind: Eternal Forces a religious real-time strategy game based on the mega-popular book and film series  (the latter of which stars grown-up Growing Pains heartthrob-turned-zealot Kirk Cameron). The premise is that all the good folks head up to heaven while the bad guys, non-Christians and--egads!--scientists and rock singers are left to endure The Rapture under the thumb of a Russian-born Antichrist.

The convert-or-kill videogame garnered a bit of controversy, but much of the criticism boiled down to the fact that the game kinda sucked.

Well, now we’ve got Bibleman, another game based on a fundamentalist franchise starring a washed-up sitcom actor (in this case, Willie Ames, of Charles in Charge infamy, though he’s since moved on to, um, let’s just say he’s moved on).

But if the Left Behind game-makers weren’t that good at making games, they had divine inspiration compared to the dev team behind Bibleman: A Fight For Faith, a light sabre-swinging, scripture-spouting spiritual superhero who wants to bring society back to the God-fearing, Ronald Regan-ruled mid-80s--at least that’s the only explanation for their throwback graphics. The game trailer, also starring the arch-villain “Wacky Protester” (I shit you not), is a camp classic.

Though the trailer was recently posted to Gamevideos.com and is currently viraling about the interweb, the game itself apparently came out in 2005 and curiosity-seekers can download the demo right here.

But this is just the tip of the "God game" iceberg. Bibleman’s publisher is hard at work on Journey of The TimePilots about evil Nazi scientists trying to wipe out Christianity (um, close) and another developer is planning a massively-multiplayer online game called Visions, set in the 2^nd century holy land. This fall expect a Left Behind “gold edition” promising better graphics as well as Dance Praise 2, the sequel to the Christian-themed Dance Dance Revolution rip-off.

In the meantime, there’s always Deliverance: Moses in the Pharaoh's Court which offers “arcade-style combat in the game, but opponents simply disappear when defeated.” See, it’s cool to kill so long as those dead heathens vanish bloodlessly afterwards.

Or, y’know, drown under the Red Sea.