Sinners beware! Eternal Forces is a game that is based on the popular series of books called Left Behind. For those that are unfamiliar with the series of books or the movie of the same name, the story follows the Rapture that is foretold in the bible where the Lord will return and take his followers to Heaven leaving the non-believers “left behind” on Earth for the End of Days. In the story, created by authors Dr. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, which is loosely based on the prophecies from the bible’s Book of Revelations, those who believed in Christ and worshiped him would one day instantly vanish as they were brought to Kingdom Come and those that were left behind would be forever left to live on Earth wondering what exactly had happened, while the Anti-Christ rises to power to control all that is left over. As you can tell just from that little opening, the game has a slight religious overtone to it and may be a huge turn off to some players from the get go.

Left Behind is a real time strategy game that puts you in the shoes of a member of the Tribulation Force. The Tribulation Force is the group of people who have realized what has happened to all the people who have vanished from the Earth and are gathered together to stop the Global Community Peace Keepers, who are after world domination after they tricked the world powers into disarming their armies. As you start the game, you will need to recruit other members to your cause by influencing them. When you find neutral NPC’s scattered about the city, you can convert them to your side and start to build units. You won’t get anywhere fast without other helping you with your cause, so your first action should be to influence as many people as you can to your side and start training them in different disciplines. You will be able to train fellow Tribulation members as builders, recruiters, influencers, healers and soldiers. Each class can be upgraded a number of times to give them stronger abilities to become more useful as the game goes on. Although the game does start a little slow, as it progresses and the story picks up and the pace of the game does as well.

Builders will be in charge of acquiring and upgrading property that you can find through out the city. Buildings will play a large part in the game and are necessary in your fight against the Anti-Christ. Building such as churches, hospitals, banks and colleges are all needed to help you and your followers and will also be first on your list of things to attain. Once you have your base set of followers and buildings, you’ll need to complete the missions set out for you. Most are no more than traveling from one side of the map to the other with an added side quest which will require you to go in the exact opposite direct of the main quest, but a little exercise never hurt anyone. Along the way, gangs of non believers and other enemies will be hanging out on street corners and sometimes you will need to confront them, but a lot of the time simply running around them avoids any type of confrontation. When you do need to battle, musicians and soldiers are the keys to battle. Controlling units is pretty simple and is done the same way most RTS games are by pointing and clicking and dragging to select units. Hearing “praise the lord!” or some similar phrase every time you move a character does tend to grate on your nerves after a while.

While moving the units is no trouble at all, getting the camera in a correct position is another story. The camera will not turn a full 360 degrees when it is turning, so you will need to constantly spin one direction and then the other depending on which side you need to view from. When you are in the process of getting chased or in battle, this little annoyance turns into a great one. Graphically the game is decent and doesn’t garner too many complaints. The animations are well done as are the sounds and the feel of the city, although at times it can feel a little too bland. One major problem that I had, although some may over look it, was there are just way too many ads found in the game. It seems like every street has a huge GameStop or an EB Games sign on it and AdCouncil ads are no less out of place either. Between each mission, there are clue screens or blurbs that give a paragraph or two about the bible and real world theories and discussions. One such that sticks out was the one that debated – or rather stated – that macro-evolution was not a practical way of thinking and that it should not be confused with micro-evolution because there is no substantial scientific fact to prove it. As well during each of these screens, there will be music playing and at the bottom of the screen, it will tell you the name of the song, the band and give you an option on whether or not you would like to purchase it. Some may like that option, but with all the advertising already in the game, it seriously felt like overkill. Not too mention each time I clicked the buy button to see what would happen, the game crashed.

Although you may find the single player campaign taking up most of your play time, there is always the multiplayer aspect to spend a good amount of time on. The multiplayer portion of the game is pretty hefty and allows players to take the role of either side – good or bad – with up to 8 players, 4 players per team. When you get tired of trying to influence all the non-believers and sinners in the single player campaign, it’s nice to be able to jump online and play for the anti-Christ and exact some revenge on the goody-two-shoes. Left Behind: Eternal Forces is a game that may be a tough sell to many people who think it may bash them over the head repeatedly with a bible. It’s overtones about religion and beliefs are something that some may be wary of and those people more than likely wouldn’t want to touch the game with a ten foot pole. Those that can look past that though, would have a pretty good time with the game despite its few flaws in gameplay. If nothing else, Left Behind is a great representation of the book series and any fans of the books would have a good time with the game version.