Last year, the Italian team of artists, designers and programmers known as Molleindustria released Faith Fighter, a 2D Flash-based brawler that pits God against Buddha, Jesus against Muhammed. Obviously, this upset some people.
But not right away, as the Metro UK reveals that religious types of all faiths (or at least three people) are fuming over the web game. While Molleindustria says on its web site that Faith Fighter is "not intended to be offensive to any religion in particular," but instead to "push gamers to reflect on how the religions and sacred representations are often instrumentally used to fuel or justify conflicts between nations and people" others strong disagree.
"This game is going out of its way to upset people and I think it should be taken off the internet," said Douglas Miller, pastor of the Link Church in Birmingham, according to Metro's report.
On other fronts, spokespeople for Federation of Muslim Organizations say that "Having images depicting Muhammad in this way is also very offensive to our faith." This is well-known to the folks at Molleindustria, who offer a censored version of the game that obscures Muhammed's face.
Molleindustria may have gone to some lengths to prevent the riling up of certain religious groups, but the tagline "Religious hate has never been so much fun" might just undermine that.
I'd suggest that if you're offended by the content of Faith Fighter, some of Molleindustria's other games may be worth your time, including Operation: Pedopriest, Orgasm Simulator and Queerland. That's the kind of fun everyone can agree on.
Calls to ban online game of Holy hatred [Metro UK via GamePolitics]
Faith Fighter Will Test Your Skills, Religious Tolerance [Kotaku]