Biblical fun on your Gameboy Advance!
Now here's something different, a game which has been written for a
handheld, based on christian values, especially from a USAian slant. We have
the brains behind Crave Entertainment to thank for this. In my case, we also
have the power of emulation under MacOS, and the power of warez to allow me
to consider this masterpiece further.
Crave Entertainment describe their product thus;
"You know how you are supposed to keep your mind on God wherever you go?
Now you can do just that while you play The Bible Game on your portable
Gameboy Advance. This new game by Crave puts your video gaming skills and
Bible knowledge to the test in action and quiz challenges for all ages. It's
interactive fun on the go. Don't leave home without it."
We won't!
Anyway, browsing Crave's website not only revaled this, but also a very
different looking PS2/Xbox game. The bigger consoles support a more arcade-
based game style with totally different graphics. The Gameboy Advance
resorts to something that looks a lot like an isometric arcade adventure
with a 45 degree pseudo 3-D viewpoint, of the style of later 8-bit games,
and quite a lot of earlier 16-bit games. The look and feel wouldn't be out
of place on a stock ST.
The Bible Game begins with a scene showing a young boy and girl asking their
parents about the 'Armor of God' (All americanisms kept intact!) After a
short blurb on what that armor actually is and what it does, the boy
exclaims that "This armor sounds really cool!" Just then, things take a
sinister turn, when the cry goes up "Run! the master deceiver has escaped!"
Clearly it is time for drastic action, and you get to choose the sex of your
player, boy or girl. The chosen one is ready to put on the armor of god! and
go and get that nasty deceiver!
The kid of your choice warps away to a far off land where sin has overridden
a small village. It is your goal as the child to walk the land, squishing
evil bugs and answering bible trivia challenges to rid the world of evil."
In a "humorous" touch, these bugs are called "Herra-ticks". They come in
two distinct categories, the small skinny ones are Methodist bugs, and the
fat squishy ones are Roman Catholic, possibly?
Stomping bugs seems to be the main action part of the game, perhaps you are
stamping on the evil designs of the dark one himself?
At this point in the review, I decided to google for "Satan Bug".
The Satan Bug (1965) The Satan Bug - Cast, Crew, Reviews, Plot Summary,
Comments, Discussion, Taglines, Trailers, Posters, Photos, Showtimes, Link
to Official Site, Fan Sites. www.imdb.com/title/tt0059678/ - 46k - Cached -
Similar pages Satan Bug Natas Virus Information Helping you understand the
virus Satan Bug Natus. ... Satan Bug Natas, or S_Bug, is a highly
Polymorphic virus that has been reported to be in the wild in ...
www.computerhope.com/sbug.htm - 17k - Cached - Similar pages
Hmmm, the first entry refers to a film of the Alastair Maclean novel of that
name, where a nasty virus threatens to wipe out the world. The second refers
to a nasty virus which threatens to 'own' all the peecees in the world!
Nothing to do with the 'armor of god' at all here, but I'm digressing way
too much now!
It's not just about the squishy little fellows though, you are given vague
directions from time to time by helpful villagers, apart from those
occasions where the audio clip cuts off in mid senten... Then the music
changes, and you go head to head with the deceivers minions, who spit the
occasional fireball at you. You can throw holy water to stun them, if this
is to hand, and you have to go up to them and head-butt the bad guy,
whereupon you are locked in mortal Bible question answering combat with it!
Some questions are obscure, but others recognisable from the religiously
encoded parts of your DNA, or the stuff they shoved into your head at
school. Winning one of these contests means that you collect one of the
fragments of keys and different parts of the garden are unlocked. There is a
brief "action" sequence with more bugs in an underground passage to get to
the next bit. Winning all five of these sessions, including a final mano-y-
mano session with the deceiver himself, gets you a complete key, which
unlocks a church door, and you've won your first piece of the 'Armor of
god'.
I get the feeling I got further than most reviewers, as the landscape
changed completely to a desert scene, and the bugs changed to scorpions.
Also the irritating background music changed to something else. The rest of
it is still the same, apart from the underground passages gaining a new
element, where you have to MIND THE GAP! At this point, I figured I had seen
enough.
Graphically, as I said earlier, it strongly resembles an oldschool isometric
pseudo-3d graphic adventure. The graphics for the collectible power-ups are
very small. I played this on an emulator with a 2x zoom mode enabled, which
was ok. With no zoom, the sprites and power ups all looked rather small. I'd
say that that the game was graphically uninspired.
The continuous rolling soundtrack defaulted to some generic 'this is how
music in the olden days in the bible sounded' vaguely mediterranean
flavoured ditty, which got very annoying after a while, or even a minute.
The sampled speech clips, when a villager gives you directions or warnings
wasn't totally reliable, as mentioned earlier.
The difficulty level has a range of easy, medium, and hard. In the 'easy'
level it is difficult to lose a life, as your energy rebuilds itself quickly
(an indicator in the shape of a heart), and there are power-booster pick-ups
in easy reach. When playing it 'hard', the bugs are a bit harder to squish,
but not much harder, but the deceiver has had a turbo boost, and is quite a
bitch to get to without losing a life. Once you've done that, the bible
questions, amazingly, are the same as on the easy level!
Mark Bozon of of the Neoseeker website had some things to say about this
game as well. His views are worth adding, as he looks at the downsides of
playing it on real hardware, rather than an emulation like I did.
"The Bible Game is littered with flaws within the game's functionality as
well. The game controls very clunky, and art doesn't always match up with
collision points. A load screen is used between each level which makes no
sense for a GBA game, and it actually displayed for more than a few seconds.
There is no battery save either, which simply reaffirms the idea that this
was a game never meant to actually be played. Recorded audio for the kids
and townspeople skips like a bad CD, and the music will randomly cut out
during scripted sequences and battles. This title screams rush job, and even
the aspects that had promise were ruined completely."
His summing up goes thus;
"The Game Boy Advance has been around for over four and a half years, and
gamers have seen everything from blockbuster hits to total flops. It is
astonishing that after this many years the quality for products can actually
go down. The Bible Game manages to take a simple mini-game based franchise
and attempt to go above and beyond by constructing a full adventure on a
smaller platform without the help of a strong design, battery save, or
console inspiration. Sadly, The Bible Game is a failed attempt plagued with
troublesome bugs, weak gameplay, and little to no style. What could have
been an entertaining and educational children's game turned into yet another
casualty of the industry. Avoid at all costs."
In my own view, it would take a very devout small child to get to the end of
this before getting bored with the essential sameness of the game.
Graphics:- 60% - Not bad, if it were an ST game, too small for the
restricted screen size of the GBA. A whiff of "will this do?" in some places
to be blunt.
Sound:- 30% - Repetitive and unimaginative soundtracks, and comedy speech
failure!
Playability:- 70% - Fair to middling. Not a hard game to get into, but not
one you will see through to the end.
Overall:- 50% - Forcing kids to play this will raise a new generation of
militant atheists!
And I've not even said anything about the overt religious propaganda aspect
in this review, blummin' heck!
CiH, for the Alive Xmas Special,Dec '05
|
