November 17, 2006 marked the debut of the PlayStation 3 on American shelves. Alongside that was Resistance: Fall of Man, a first person shooter which uses an alternate timeline that places an alien invasion before the start of World War II. Players take on the typical video game hero role to repel the invaders in a unique storyline spin with its interesting history.

On June 10, 2007, the Church of England apparently discovered that level eight in the game contains a shootout sequence inside the Manchester Cathedral. The sequence in question has the player defending the church, which has become a makeshift medical tent and one of the few human refuges left, against an all out alien assault.

The Church has begun an all out PR war against Sony, rallying a ridiculous number of people to speak out against this, regardless of whether or not actual facts are used. Their first statement which started this week-long odyssey is rife with ignorance: “It is well known that Manchester has a gun crime problem. 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.”

Keep in mind the player is defending the site and not killing anything resembling a human.

As reported by the invaluable GamePolitics, one citizen who lost her son was quoted as saying, “We’re actually fighting for the minds of our children.”

What does that have to do with anything pertaining to the use of a church in a video game? Needless to say, this is hardly the first time a church of any kind has been used in a video game, violent or not. To compile a list of violent movies featuring churches would take days, if not months, to complete.

Sony’s initial response should have put an end to the debate. “It is not based on reality at all. Throughout the whole process we have sought permission where necessary.”

It’s not reality, which is blatantly obvious to anyone who has played the game, and they claim to have secured any rights required. For CNN, they took this story and made it into a headline-grabber, labeling Resistance a “Cathedral Shootout Game.” The apparently non-fact-checked article describes the sequence as such: “… shows a virtual shootout between rival gunmen with hundreds of people killed inside the cathedral.”

Of course, in an ironic twist, the article links to a video of the Cathedral scene that clearly shows it fails to live up to CNN’s hype.

For the Church, this wasn’t enough, and the battle continued on. A day later, the true motives came out. The Church demanded compensation, along with a ridiculous request to remove the game from store shelves, and/or release a version of the game without the sequence in question. Never mind that the game has been available for eight months and sold a few million copies; now is the time to save the children — and land a decent financial kickback.