It’s Christmas in July! Okay, not really, this is just how the scheduling (if you can call it that) for these episode reviews worked out, so today we’re taking a look at the second “Bible Games” Angry Video Game Nerd episode.
This one is a bit of an interesting one — it was the first to be filmed in High Defenition. 720P, anyway, but still by definition HD, and proper widescreen. The funny thing is, when I would watch this episode back in the day I didn’t even notice this! Ah well.
As the title suggests, this is another look at video games based on stories from The Bible, starting off right where the episode from 2 years before left off.
We start with Exodus and a quick look at the crazy ass instructions for how to actually start the game! This is due to this being an unlicensed game – not authorized by Nintendo – and a common method for defeating the “lockout” chip system in the NES which allowed only authorized games to run on the hardware. It literally “shocked” the chip, stopping it from resetting the system every second when it doesn’t detect a valid cartridge and that’s that – the game would work, all at the chance of killing the NES each time you use it!
Right, on to the game itself, it’s a “collect all the junk and go to the exit” kind of “open maze” game. It’s pretty lame. That’s my summary. Oddly enough, we’re not done with this one yet, but we will get back to it after we take a look at Noah’s Ark.
No, this isn’t the Noah’s Ark from the first Bible Games episode, this is a European only release based on the same story but, aside from being difficult and having a few annoying quirks, is actually a decent game! I’ve tried it and had some fun. The crazy thing? The game was made by Konami. Neat!
Moving on, we go to Joshua on the NES and… it’s a copy of Exodus. Well, not so much a copy, more of a sequel, I’d say. This is the point in the episode where James spends some time talking about the history of Wisdom Tree / Color Dreams – the company which was once just a generic 3rd party unlicensed game producer which switched to making Christian themed games in the early 90’s — they mostly took older games, added Christian themes and mini-games (even Karaoke in at least one case) and resold them. The crazy thing is, they sold kind of well, depending on where in the US you may live — my area has more of them than I would expect, but your experience hunting for these, if you want them, may be different.
Anyway, here we reach the meat of the episode, Menace Beach, which was changed to Sunday Funday. Instead of being a skateboarding punk trying to rescue your girlfriend as was the case in Menace Beach the “Wisdom Tree” version of the game, Sunday Funday, has you trying to get to Sunday School.
Yep. How thrilling! /sarcasm
Anyway, without spoiling things, to say this game is frustrating (regardless of the name) would be an understatement. Controls are a mess, and the level design is absolutely insane. This is where the episode shines, especially just shy of 12 minutes in with the simple delivery of one “Damn!” capturing the mood perfectly. A superb moment in Nerd history.
The episode isn’t over though, oh no, at the end we look at one more bit of junk — Bible Games on CD-i! Oh, I won’t even spoil this for you. I hate to admit it, but these are the kinds of programs that the CD-i was designed for, and that just goes to show how much of a damn mess (and a product of its time) the CD-i was.
Final Rating: 4.5/5
This was a hell of a good episode. Considering it’s holiday themed I think many may skip over it outside of December, and it’s a shame as the commentary is great this time around. The game selection was good and gave James plenty to work with. A stand out episode that’s only hampered by the fact that, well, it’s a “Christmas” episode.
That’s all I’ve got to say on this one. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a strange urge to spray paint “Moses and Me” on a brick wall.