Left Behind: Eternal Forces is the first project from Left Behind Games, the development company created specifically to produce content based on the popular series. These novels tell the story of those who were "left behind" after the Rapture, an event predicted in the Bible's Book of Revelation where all Christians are taken to Heaven in an instant. Eternal Forces is set in New York City shortly after the Rapture, when the world is still trying to come to grips with these global disappearances. Enter Nicolae Carpathia, whom most of the world sees as a charismatic savior destined to lead them out of the chaos, yet is really the Antichrist. The Christians know this and have formed the Tribulation Force to stop him.
The storyline for this real-time strategy game (RTS) unfolds like chapters in a book, with each "chapter" representing a new mission with primary and secondary objectives. Three groups exist in the game: the Tribulation Force (good guys), the Global Peacekeepers (bad guys) and Neutrals (those who haven't sided with anyone). The goal is to save as many people as possible before the Antichrist recruits them. Recruiting Neutrals is the easiest way to accomplish this goal. Neutral's become "Friends" once they've been converted. Friends are unskilled, but can be trained into one of five unit types: Recruiters (disciples and missionaries), Builders, Influencers (musicians and worship leaders), Healers and Soldiers. A big part of the overall strategy is maintaining enough of each to accomplish your goals. For instance, without Builders you can't create the buildings needed to train other types of units or generate resources (i.e., banks make money, cafes produce food, churches train Recruiters and Influencers, etc.). In addition, each unit type comes with special abilities and skills needed to further the cause.
Unlike typical RTS games, the most important resource is people. Each character on the map is a unique person, complete with a viewable Life Story (a small feature that really makes every character seem important) and Spirit Level which must be maintained if they are to stay converted. Spirit can be raised by Praying, which every character has the ability to do, as well as by Influencers (Musicians, Worship Leaders and Praisers). If a Friend's Spirit Level should drop too low, they revert back to being Neutral, requiring them to be recruited again. It also makes them more susceptible to enlistment by the bad guys. Since they have corresponding units, and a similar agenda, it all comes down to a race to see who can convert the most people.
Violence -- or lack thereof -- is also dealt with in a manner that requires an entirely different strategic mindset. Every time any character inflicts a mortal wound, their Spirit Level drops. According to the game's tenets, the player has a moral obligation to avoid causalities at all costs. The goal is not to wipe out the enemy, but to convert them.
Special items are made available to assist with spiritual battles. Sustaining a high Spirit Level gives Scrolls, which allows player's to summon Angels. Angels bestow resource gifts and spiritual boosts to your units. Holy Water (increases Health and Spirit), Divine Protection (grants defense bonuses) and copies of the Holy Bible (Spirit bonuses) will appear within religious buildings. At the end of each successful mission a clue page appears while the next missions loads. These clues are nuggets of information that can be used to answer trivia questions. If answered correctly, players get to choose a resource bonus.
Another neat feature is additional information about Christianity and the Bible that is provided during the load screens. Music from a variety of Christian artists plays in the background, which can be purchased via the provided link. If the topic is interesting enough, click on the "Find Out More" button to be taken to the Left Behind website which is filled with tons of resource material. Topics can even be discussed further in their forums.
Unfortunately, all the originality of Eternal Forces is marred by some very frustrating technical issues, most arising from poor A.I. scripting. For example, Disciples have a hard time finding Neutrals to convert, even when automatically set to perform this task. Instead of strategizing, you're stuck micromanaging specific jobs. This becomes really bothersome in latter missions when in many cases there's simply too much going on, making it incredibly difficult to ever "win."
Further complicating matters is the required survival of Hero units during each mission, where death isn't the problem as much as maintaining their Spirit Level. When it drops too low, which happens all too often and all too quickly -- they turn Neutral, ending the game immediately. Heroes shouldn't be that easily turned to the Dark Side. Because of this, some missions can take nearly a dozen attempts to successfully complete, and where's the fun in that? Another bugaboo involves the lack of carry over from one mission to the next, forcing you to start over from scratch every time (i.e. building banks, cafes, recruiting people, etc.). A storyline should have continuity from one chapter to the next.
There are a few other quibbles (no exact way of telling how many people have been recruited in any given mission, stilted and repetitive dialogue, poor save feature, runs poorly on anything but a high end system, a multiplayer component that never had anyone online to play against), all of which can be chalked up to a first time effort. Hopefully, Left Behind Games will improve on these problems in time for their next installment, because they really are on to something unique and powerful here. As is, Eternal Forces will only appeal to the same Christian audience who bought over sixty three million copies of the books (which would make it a runway success if a fraction of those same people purchase this game), and hardcore RTS players looking for something different.
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