Bible Adventures

I would have to say that Noah's Ark is my favorite of the series. It's the most straightforward, and the most casual. You play as old man Noah running around or bounding through tree limbs to snare all the critters in the area. When you find a new animal, you press B to hoist it over your head, and shuffle and platform-hop back to a hatch in the Ark. Your goal is to collect a male and female of each species. I know what you're thinking. How will you tell the difference? Some have different colors, some are drawn differently, some like the pigs and the monkeys look EXACTLY the same. Ultimately, it won't matter. When you deposit an animal in the ark you get a screen of a tablet, checking off the male or female box for the animal you just snagged, and showing what animals you have left. That animal will also be removed from the gameworld, so it's just a matter of catching them all. Whew. I was worried for a moment that you'd have to identify them through more obvious ways.

Baby Moses has you carrying Baby Moses along the banks of the Nile, to a place where he won't be drowned by the Egyptians following the Pharoah's "no Israelite sons" rule. Unfortunately for Baby Moses, you will probably be the cause of his watery demise. This game takes the carrying from the first game, and applies it to ... let's just call him BM from now on. You can set down BM, which leaves him open to be tossed in the river by soldiers. Mostly, you'll want to use B to pick him back up after he is inevitably knocked from your grasp by spiders or hiding thugs. You can, if you so desire, sprint all the way to the end, sans BM. You'll win... sorta... but with an ending that both congratulates you on making it, and slaps you lightly on the wrist for forgetting Moses. How can you say "Good Job" when you've left Lil' Moses baking in the desert? It's only, you know, Moses.

I guess there's some mild amusement to running the gauntlet with BM atop your head, but not a great deal. The sheer numbers of enemies you will face, plus the wild springy blocks so prominent for the time (called "Biiiooooooinnggggg!"s in Aramaic), plus the beckoning call of the river, make this an average game with a difficulty not offset by the frequency of tablets. About the only thing going for you is your ability to unceremoniously toss your infant charge, pick up stones scattered about, and heave them atop the skulls of the soldiers. There are still not enough stones to clear the way comfortably, and anytime BM is not in your grasp is a moment where he is somehow going to end up in the river. All but one (obviously) of my attempts to take Moses across the desert ended with him in the drink, or me trapped in a corner getting raped by soldiers and their spears while BM watched, looking adorable all the while.

But if you weren't impressed by Baby Moses, wait 'til you get to David and Goliath! David and Goliath, the classic tale of the boy who would be king taking on a giant who's been a warrior all his life begins... with carrying sheep. To a pen. Just like Noah's game! There's really nothing I can say about this section that wasn't already covered in Noah's. Carrying sheep is the same, dodging animals is the same, except that this time they are considerably more aggressive. I suppose there's some metaphor here, about David learning to become a shepherd of man, but in game terms, it's an obvious and boring rehash of the same game you already played. After far too much sheep corralling, the final level here has you taking out bad guys with a slingshot, sort of like Dennis the Menace. Then you send Goliath and his shield guy careening off a cliff. You won't feel like the King of Israel when you're done, I didn't even feel that good about it in general, to be honest. But you will have won this section.

Well, for the scummy, unbelieving heathen that I am, I think I've covered the game pretty fairly. Part of this may be because I do give credit to the stories of either Testament or the Torah for being passed around for so long, helping give comfort to people who draw something from them, and for being interesting tales in their own right. Don't get to excited though, I also give credit to Scientology for raking in as much money as they have. As for this game, I appreciate that it's not a "Christianizing" of another work (though I get the point they were trying to make with Noah 3D, well played), and if you're going to make a game out of Bible stories, they at least got it right. I wouldn't call it a teaching tool though, nor would I call it a refreshing use of secular entertainment for enriching purposes - unless you prefer to wrap yourself and everything around you ONLY in Christian trappings, in which case this is a videogame you can play. But if that's the case, how the HELL did you get to this site?