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