Gaming God

New opportunities abound as ever to introduce your children to spiritual warfare the fun n’ easy way, whether with the new Focus on the Family-licensed video games “Adventures in Odyssey” and forthcoming Christian music dance-pad game (created by gaming company Digital Praise: “Glorifying God through Interactive Media”); or, for your more “heavy metal Christian” kids, 3D People’s “Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquistion,” a fantasy role-playing game where the gamer becomes an inquisitor on a mission to stamp out the last vestiges of taboo religion — now seen as heresy — and squash a pro-religion cult of believers who wish to resurrect the “Dead God.” Though at first blush, “Heretic Kingdoms” doesn’t seem like James Dobson’s preferred way to kill an afternoon, the message of the game is essentially his: the inquisitor is a “morally divergent” character in a “world thrown into chaos from impiousness and antidisestab- lishmentarianism,” who will have to make choices when she comes upon the warring factions of new world order anti-religion zealots and the heretical believers. Sounds like a sermon, or a Washington Times column, to us.