#79 - Bible Adventures

Heston and David, together at last on the NES!

Before David became king, he was a simple squirrel chucker.


I'll give Wisdom Tree this: there are a lot of adventures in the Bible. I don't think, however, that there are any copyright infringement adventures placed in between David and Goliath and the destruction of Israel by Babylon. I'm not sure what Wisdom Tree's logic was with this game: to give kids a "holy" game with three different stories from the Bible - Noah's Ark, Baby Moses, and David and Goliath - in which to play, but God isn't present in any of these adaptations like he was in the Bible; otherwise, there wouldn't be much of a challenge to speak of, at least from a player's perspective. Also, I'm pretty sure releasing a game on an NES without Nintendo's approval is sinful, regardless of how Wisdom Tree tried to justify it. Truthfully, the biggest sin of all is how little gameplay there actually is within the game. If you're going to release an illegal game based on the Bible, make it interesting!

Each game deserves its own hastily written paragraph, so let's hop to it! "Noah's Ark:" even if you've never been to church, you know the story. God deems the world too evil and decides to flood it, but spares Noah and his family, provided they build an enormous ark so they can save two of every animal along with themselves. In the game, your only goal is to collect two of "every animal:" pigs, cows, snakes, monkeys... and that's about it. I think as you finish each level, you move on to collect different kinds of animals, but there is no point. You pick up the animal, place them in the ark, then move on. There is little in the way of challenge: sometimes the animals hurt you, but there's plenty of health to pick up all around. On a 1 to 10 scale of sacrilegious, with "10" signifying a Roman general sacrificing a pig on the Jewish temple altar, I give this segment a 2. There's no telling how Noah rustled up all of the animals, but I doubt he carried them on his head, three at a time. Unless he was really the Hulk in disguise.

I'd rather play "Noah's Ark" for joyless hours on end, then pick up Baby Moses again. At least Noah could subdue the creatures around him. Miriam has to grit her teeth and bear it as her child flies out of her hands time and time again. In the Bible, Pharoah issues an order in Egypt that all Jewish sons shall be killed once they are born. Miriam, Moses' mother, hears this and follows God's order to stick him in a basket and place him down a river. Seems crazy, but the river takes Moses to Pharoah's daughter's house and Moses is raised in the Pharoah's household. In the game, Miriam is trying to make it all the way across Egypt with baby Moses on top of her head. I'm guessing the goal is to take Moses to the basket waiting in the river, but there's a river running throughout the levels of this game. Also, all of God's creatures are out to kill Miriam and baby Moses, including what appears to be Israelite slaves... not sure how that works. At any rate, Miriam is a wuss. She has no attack feature in the game, and the best the game can do is supply her a decent jump. If she gets hit, Baby Moses goes flying. If baby Moses flies too far off screen, you have to go all the way back to the beginning of the level, but if you finish the level without Moses, it doesn't matter. You still move on to the next level. On a sacrilegious scale, this definitely rates a 6. No way would God let anything come between Miriam and Moses, and if Moses flew off of his mother's head, he'd be dead. That's just common sense.

Ah, David and Goliath. I feel no need to summarize this story. The triumphant tale of a boy defeating a giant with one stone is truly an epic of biblical proportions. So why then, in the first four levels of this game, am I collecting sheep? I understand that David was a shepherd first before he became a warrior, but if I wanted to collect anything, I'd return to Noah's Ark. After the first four levels, you run through the Philistine Army and do battle against Goliath, but it shouldn't have taken four levels of throwing sheep and avoiding lions to get to that point. They should have done a "David and his Mighty Men" segment, which would consist of David and a bunch of guys running around and doing battle with others. Even if less people have heard of David's exploits, at least it would have made more sense in an action game. On a scale of 1 to Worship, this segment gets a 2 for being a blatant ripoff of another segment featured in the same game.

There was a time back in the 80s and 90s where some children who grew up in religious families could not play with any toys unless they were Christian. Thankfully, I was not one of those kids, but had I been, and I received a NES with Bible Adventures, I wouldn't be super depressed. Unlike many games I review, it is playable. Compared to the other heathen games I review, however, this game is a sad, depressing waste of time. If you're going to combine the stories/morals of the Bible with a secular/neutral entertainment medium, at least make said project entertaining. There's no reason to give the Lord a bad name with yet another crappy Christian product.

D