A Tufts university researcher wants to use an incident in “World of Warcraft” to learn about how a pandemic might spread and people might react to it.

In the fall of 2005, Blizzard Entertainment, which created and operates “World of Warcraft”, introduced a new area into the game and in the area, a new villain who could infect players with a curse called “Corrupted Blood”, which caused a great deal of damage to the player over a short period of time, usually killing the player in short order. A very unusual effect of Corrupted Blood was that it could infect others standing near players who were afflicted by it. Leaving the area would clear the curse, but it turned out there was an accidental vector for it to travel outside of the new area, via pets belonging to Hunter characters. So, while the creators of World of Warcraft had meant for it to be contained in only the new area they’d added, it spread across the world and through the major cities. Players started avoiding the major cities and groups of other players in an attempt to stay clear of the curse.

(more…)

The latest review I’ve seen has the reviewer so bored with the game that he quit before even encountering a Level 5 Horned Demon. One new bit of news to me: you can apparently play as the Anti-Christ but you cannot win if you do.

Via: Boing Boing: Review of computer game based on “Left Behind” post-rapture books

(more…)

When I first wrote about Left Behind: Eternal Forces, I honestly figured it was just blog fodder. I thought it would be one of those games I’d hear about once, which might never even make it to release… and even if it did, I’d never hear about it again.

Wrong!
(more…)

World of Warcraft may feature many apocalyptic events, from killer zombie invasions launched from floating necropolises (necropoli?) to giant egyptian-like figures stomping around in the deserts, but the real World of Warcraft apocalypse is coming up next week when they release the patch to version 2.0 of the system, probably the biggest update they’ll have made thus far. Version 2 is necessitated by the launch of the Burning Crusade expansion, to be released in mid-January.
(more…)

Wired (online) reviews the new Christian-themed video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces.

(more…)

While looking for info about Left Behind: Eternal Forces, I stumbled across Left Behind: The Board Game. Yes, you too can explore apocalyptic Christian mythology on those cold winter nights in your den with your family. Or you can play Scrabble.

The popular apocalyptic book series Left Behind has spawned a video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces (I can’t find a good link for it right now).
(more…)