Left Behind: Eternal Forces Demo

There are many different ways one can develop a real-time strategy game, especially when it comes to gameplay mechanics and the underlying story. However, the main idea is to always let the players have fun and put their strategies into practice, while also providing them with an interesting plot to keep the interest level high throughout the main campaign.

Left Behind: Eternal Forces is an RTS that features some unique ideas when it comes to story and gameplay, but unique is not always synonym with good, unfortunately. Regardless of how intriguing the mechanics might be, or how inviting the story seems, it’s very difficult to get exciting about something that is largely unplayable and badly designed across the board. Hence, originality is not always the answer, if you lack the abilities to put it into practice properly.

As such, Left Behind: Eternal Forces is all about Christianity and a rather dark vision on what the world would look like after the Rapture comes and takes the good people into heaven. There are two factions disputing the land, namely the Tribulation force, and the bad guys driven by Nicolae Carpathia, who’s actually the Antichrist. Since you get to play with both sides, you should be able to get a good look at the conflict.

Unfortunately, the game is way too broken to be worth the bother, because nothing works like it should and the difficulty level is too high anyway. Hence, there are many problems with how the units move around the scenery and how they respond to your commands, although some of these issues were solved by patches later on. Even fully patched, on the other hand, the camera is still terrible and you barely get to see what happens down on the ground.

There are many inconsistencies when it comes to the combat as well, since it’s never clear what works and what doesn’t during the battles. Luck seems to be the driving force of the entire thing, so it can be pretty frustrating to play if nothing happens to go your way. Sure, some strategies and tactics are possible, but there’s barely any satisfaction to watch them unfold.

When it’s all said and done, no real-time strategy fan would consciously play Left Behind: Eternal Forces for more than a few minutes. However, if you are interested in religion and you have nerves of steel, the game can be somewhat intriguing, especially since of the unique theme it approaches.