Category Archives: Gaming

Introducing the 10 commandments to Skyrim

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Picture cc from -Dreamflow- on Flickr

I gave in to the hype and bought Skyrim over the weekend.  I’m now thinking I might do a play-through where I try to abide by the 10 commandments.

As 21st century readers, I’d suggest we’re not always great at picturing/understanding how these sorts of biblical scenes would play out or what it would be like to receive those commandments in their original, ancient context.  Now, I’m not saying the world of Skyrim is anything like the world of Moses and the Israelites in Exodus, but it’d just be interesting to try and explore them in a different world than 21st century Britain and see how they play out.  Mind you, Skyrim – like Exodus – does seem to have plenty of stone tablets, idols and so on!

Has anyone done a 10 commandments setup already?  If you play the game, what ‘code’ does your character live by?  Who do you make the ‘authority’ in how you behave in-game?

UPDATE: I realised that one commandment in particular could cause serious difficulty in the game: ‘do not kill’. However, here’s one guy running a character with exactly that motto – he’s made it to level 9 without killing a single thing.

LA Noire – how much can you tell about someone from their face?

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There’s a lot of excitement about Rockstar’s forthcoming game LA Noire – not least because of the rather nifty facial motion capture technology it’ll be using.  The innovation at the heart of the gameplay seems to be that you use this detailed facial expression stuff to figure out if people are lying or not – and, in turn, crack a series of crimes.  Check out the ‘tech trailer’ for a bit more:

LA Noire’s creators are keen to point out that, before this technology, a game couldn’t tell you enough to even have a gut reaction about whether people were telling the truth or not (imagine trying to get a ‘tell’ from little 8 bit Mario!)  There’s a lot of information communicated in the details of face and eye movements, they say – and so if you can’t see those details on your screen, you can’t even hazard a guess about a character’s intentions.

What would the next level up from this be, I wonder.  Can you get any more insight into what’s going on in someone’s head?  How do we make these judgements in real life?  Well, one thing’s for sure: we make them imperfectly.  Not even the best interrogator will see through someone’s cover story 100% of the time, right?  That thought reminded me of one of the recurring claims about God in the Bible.  Apparently, he can go at least one better than watching people’s faces to figure out what’s going on with them:

For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart (1 Sam 16.7, ESV)

some of the scribes said to themselves, ”This man is blaspheming.” But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, ”Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? (Matthew 9.3-5, ESV)

…you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind (1 Kings 8.39, ESV)

I know, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness (1 Chronicles 29.17, ESV)

If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
would not God discover this?
For he knows the secrets of the heart. (Psalm 44.20-21, ESV)

I think the ‘are they lying?’ feature alone will make LA Noire a great new game – trying to gauge and react to what another person is thinking invariably holds a certain kind of fascination (see poker, Jeremy Kyle, any gumshoe detective novel).  Check out some of these intriguing (and perhaps surprising) stories of just that from the Bible:

  • All of Jonah (it’s only short): God tells Jonah to go to a place called Nineveh and prophesy to the people there – but Jonah doesn’t fancy it and tries to run away from God, hiding below decks in a boat.  How do you think that plays out?
  • 2 Samuel 11-12: King David wants to sleep with Bathsheba, so ‘sneakily’ arranges to have her husband killed.  Also, take a look at his prayer when he realises that God knows exactly what he’s done: Psalm 51.
  • John 21.15-19: Simon was a fisherman.  Then Jesus told him he would be called Peter – meaning ‘rock – and ‘on this rock I will build my church’.  But then, when Jesus was facing trial and possible execution, Simon Peter denied he knew him at all.  Game over, right?  But no, in so many ways, that wasn’t the end of the story.  Check out the post-denial encounter between Peter and (the resurrected – but that’s another story) Jesus…

The New Ten Commandments – or just clever spin?

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EA Games – or more accurately, Mischief PR – have pulled a creative blinder in an attempt to publicise the new computer game, The Sims 3. To get across the message that the new game allows people to ‘play God’, they’ve put together a PR stunt that involves rewriting the Ten Commandments.

They start off with a poll showing that only 28% of British teenagers can name a single one - while just 6% of adults can list them all. So far, so predictable. I’m not sure I could even name them all myself off the top of my head (I hate being put on the spot, you see). But look, everyone! There’s even an eyecatching photocall at Westminster, complete with a new set of graven commandments!

Warming up, EA then play what they think is their trump card. Apparently two thirds of the British population think that four of the Ten Commandments should be given the heave-ho. These include those inconvenient rules about not shopping on Sunday, sticking to one religion, refraining from idolising celebrities and the ban on the use of ‘Oh My God!’.

The pollsters then got people to suggest replacements for these four. In response, they came up with suitably 21st century suggestions about ‘being nice’. The new four commandments (drum roll, please) are:

- Respect all people regardless of race, religion or sexuality
- Do not commit acts of terrorism
- Respect and protect the planet
- Do not be motivated by greed

So what to make of all this? First off, round of applause to the PR merchants. Very creative, people. However, using an online research company means that the robustness of the research must be taken with a pinch of salt. The poll was not of MORI standards. It’s just an indication. A more solid poll of Brits in 2008 revealed that 66% believed the Bible to be ‘true’, while 75% agreed that it was ‘interesting’.

However, I think the poll is a fairly accurate reflection of where many Brits stand on the Bible today. It has continuing value, sure, but people do have questions about some of it. But thanks, EA, for bringing the issue of the Bible’s value to the fore.