Cathedral treads the path of most Resistance
Manchester Cathedral has hit out at Sony after the church was used in the hugely successful Resistance Fall Of Man game for the Playstation 3.
In the game, there is a shoot-out between rivals inside the cathedral, with hundreds killed in the bloodiest way possible.
The Cathedral said: "For a global manufacturer to re-create one of our great cathedrals with photo-realistic quality and then encourage people to have guns battles in the building is beyond belief and highly irresponsible."
Sony said: ... ... ... *tumbleweed*
I'm not sure about "photo realistic" if the screenshot above is anything to go by. In the Battle Of Manchester Cathedral (I'm copyrighting that), gunmen open fire at you from the roof. Once you've despatched them, you have to shoot your way into the cathedral before collecting ammo. You have to blast your way to an alleyway, returning to the Cathedral to top up your life level if you need to.
Sony didn't ask permission and the church is threatening to sue.
But shouldn't the cathedral get 'with it', and isn't it sending the wrong message to non-believers by being so outraged? I'm sure they wouldn't object if BBC Cardiff asked to film Doctor Who there, and that's often about the annihilation of billions. They should put up a blue plaque in honour of the PS3 game.
Then again, isn't it about time we the church spoke out against a culture that allows big business to promote values of violence and, in the case of much of the rest of pop culture, misogyny, crass materialism and racial stereotyping. Guns are bad. Good on the cathedral on tapping into the new Banksy mentality of people wanting flowers not bombs.
What do you think? Let the debate begin.
Labels: culture, gaming, Manchester Cathedral
posted by Fat Roland @ 1:11 PM 
7 Comments:
At 2:28 PM,
Tony said…
The Manchester depction in RFOM bears only a passing resemblance to Manchester itself (they stuck a couple of landmarks in but that's it). Photo realistic? Not by a long shot.
Also the inside of the cathederal is completely made up so they probably never got photographs of that.
It looks like they had some
external photos of the cathederal, the library and a couple of others and made their 'city' out of that, but have never seen it properly.
No problem with that myself.. it's a fun game (even though I'm rubbish at it & spend more time dead than alive).
What I find *far* more annoying is the ITV story. http://itn.co.uk/news/f25e0c0172bfa6f6f6817f6b20ec983f.html
"Manchester - a city plagued by gun violence which has left tens of youngsters dead."
*fume* *fume*
Anyway... suing Sony? Do they have the budget? And if they do why the hell are they spending it on lawyers?
At 7:32 PM,
Tony said…
Oh god this is horrid.
The US thinks we have a gun crime problem (which they interpret as 'go outside and a 50% chance of getting your head blown off').
The church looks like it just found out how to make easy money by suing large companies with frivolous lawsuits.
The Winners? Sony.. who'll sell a shedload of copies of RFOM & PS3s on the back of the free publicity.
Meanwhile the reputation of the city is in the crapper.
Nice one rev.
At 8:17 PM,
Anonymous said…
Sony may well hope that they sue; ideally just before the retailers place the Christmas stock orders They must be laughing all the way to the bank; I doubt that any other game has had it's sales boosted so much by the daily media reporting. On the plus side, computer games, like religion, appeal to those who enjoy delusion, and they may even have boosted sales to their congregation. In any case, I'm sure a lot worse happened in the cathedral 800 years ago when it was built. What is the Church going to sue next? Every author who ever set a murder or atrocity in a church or cathedral? Perhaps it ought to sue those it employs who have been convicted of abuse for beach of contract - now that would be money well spent.
At 4:17 PM,
Andy said…
Church - focus your energy on what is important.
A computer game that uses a church as a setting isn't that important and you come accross as petty and small minded.
At 1:31 PM,
Ben said…
I couldn't disgree more with Andy. Challenging the culture of violence is at the heart of the christian gospel - Blessed are the peacemakers.
The Cathedral has an annual service for people who have lost family due to violent crime - it is so disrespectful of Sony to those people, and therefor ethe cathedral has a responsibility to speak out.
At 2:36 PM,
Lev said…
Well said Ben.
...Lev
At 12:26 AM,
Craig said…
I thought the two did look very similar, Externally definately, as well as some similarities internally.
I enjoyed the game, and thought the detail in the cities was a job well done.
As for the morals behind it, the game also shows the cathedral as a place for helping those in need, with all the beds set out for medical help etc, the place just happened to get invaded by a strange alien race (were they aliens? i know they used the virus, but its not that well explained)
Although yes, its not real, and someone at some point must have decided to stage the battle there, but then, it did get bombed by the Germans in the '40s, and had we been invaded by foot-soldiers, I'd say the cathedral would have seen a similar battle . . minus the pulse-rifles, force-fields and what not of course.
It doesnt show a disrespect for the church in my opinion, just the realism of war, and what happens in desperate times. It would be a terrible shame if something anywhere near that amount of chaos should really happen there, but for now at least, It's just a game, it doesn't mean people are more likely to start a fight of any sort in a church.
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