Slate has a short article on Islamist video games.
If you ignore the titles of the Ummah Defense games and the occasional in-game messages?”Alhamdulillah, You Destroyed the Command Ship!”?it’s impossible to tell that you’re playing an “Islamic game.” When I destroyed the third of the four command ships controlling the “Flying Evil Robot Armada” in the first Ummah Defense, I didn’t ruminate on whether my real-life allegiance should be with the robots. I just thought, only one more ship to go!
Same old problem: It’s hard to place or identify a clear message in the game mechanics, but in many game forms, the player eventually only really cares about the game mechanics.