Get Played - Get Played Remastered: Bible Adventures with Paul F. Tompkins

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Originally Released December 20, 2020 Paul F. Tompkins joins Nick and Heather to discuss Bible Adventures! They talk about how playing it is actually a sin, how the game was a blatant cash grab, gaming on the Mr. Show set, and more! Check out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed Follow us on social media @getplayedpod Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com For ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? and our Premium DLC episodes and our exclusive show Get Anime'd where we're doing a Pokemon Heroes watchalong go to patreon.com/getplayed Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fm All of our links can be found at linktree.com/getplayedpodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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slash get played. Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. Lights, please. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were sore afraid and the angels said unto them fear not hey hey I'm sorry I'm sorry to interrupt your little speech there what is this music it'll make sense just just give it a moment just give it a moment it'll make some sense it's just it's really abrasive and the angels said unto them fear not for behold I bring you

good tidings of great joy which will be to all people you hear the music sorry it it'll make sense what do you mean what do you mean it'll make how is this how is this making sense close your eyes okay okay for unto you is born this day in the city of david a savior which is christ the lord i mean i'm hearing what you're saying yeah i just like i this seems completely disconnected from anything at all christian or biblical it's a hymn it's a Or even Christmasy. No, it's this MIDI track is a hymn of God. This dissonant baseline is a hymn of God.

Midi, you should let the Holy Spirit enter you. Midi, you should. I don't get cute with me. And this shall be a sign of you. I'll explain what the hell's going on with this music. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host playing a song like this and saying

I get it I get what's going on here this is this is hell this is I have sinned in my life and I died and I am in hell and that involves hearing this sort of vaguely you know spiritual thing and then also being subjected to this music at the same time no this is this is the one song God wrote himself

this song is This is the one. Look, I'm sorry I cheated on my taxes, okay? I'm sorry. I took some deductions. I wasn't entitled to. Oh, God. Oh, no.

Oh, now I got to suck your cock. What? No, nobody's asking you to do. We stack oxen on our heads and carry baby Moses past giant spiders in unlicensed NES game Bible Adventures this week on how did this get played. Welcome to How to This Get Play, the show where we discuss the worst and weirdest and wonderfulest video games of all time. I'm Heather Ann Campbell. I'm Heather Ann Campbell along with our producer Matt Apodaca. Ho, ho, ho, everyone.

Oh, ho, ho, ho, everyone. I didn't prepare anything for this, so I'm going to say, welcome back, bucket of snow. Edge of a reindeer's antler? Guys, we have a truly execrable game to discuss this week that is Christmas-themed. But before we do that, before, you know what, this is interesting, because we have a Christian-themed game,

but it is very much a hellish gameplay experience. And so we are very much descending into gaming hell metaphorically, but before we do that, it is time as we always do to first spend 70 seconds in gaming heaven. Matt, count us off. Go for it. Two big things for me this week, guys. One, I beat Miles Morales.

Wow. beat Miles Morales. It is the first game that I think I've completed since quarantine started that wasn't for the show. I think. I might have beaten one other one, but I have returned finally to Final Fantasy remake, which has been on my, can't wait to get back to it, playing it excitedly. I'm so happy to be there. And guys, when I played Final Fantasy for the first time in March,

I had just come off of boxing. I was boxing two times a week or two times a day. Every day a week. I was in the fittest fucking shape of my life. And I was like, fuck, I could look like cloud. I could get that body. And now I, no joke, I am wedge. And seeing my, like, I have a bit that I do with my girlfriend where I take out my stomach and I put it over the back of a chair and it hangs like loose pizza dough.

Um, that's the kind of love we have. Wow. That's the shape of it. Yes. Wow. Wow. Your co-hosts are already two wedges. So we're adding a third wedge to the dynamic.

We'll see how that works. All wedge all the time. Um, I, I'm really excited to hear what to talk about you when you finish that game. I know the time for discussing good games is up, but I, I loved it. And I'm interested as an FF7 fan. to hear your take when you finish the remake. Well, I said this to you guys on text today. I'm astonished at after playing Miles Morales that the graphical fidelity of Final Fantasy remake seems like worse.

I'm playing it on PS5. Interesting. And it just doesn't have that shine that Miles Morales did. It feels like a cheap game in comparison, which is bonkers. because that game, Final Fantasy remake, cost them like, what, $200 million or something to make? But like all the textures are a little bit blurry in the background and, like, you get up close to stuff and it's a little bit chunky

and you're like, oh, shit, this is the generational difference. It's the world fidelity. The main characters are indistinguishable. I mean, like, Cloud looks as good as Miles in most circumstances. But the world itself has so much more richness. and detail and light in that Spider-Man game. I'm really excited about the video gaming future, guys. Real excited.

Well, I'm glad. But it's time now to get into the video game past. And to help us with that, our guest today, we're thrilled to have him. An actor and comedian from the podcast, The Neighborhood Listen, and Threatom, Paul F. Tompkins. PFT, welcome to the show. Oh, wedge number four, reporting for D. duty. Paula, we're very excited to have you, of course.

Now, I believe that people who follow you on social media are aware of this, but you are a gamer. You're someone who plays video games recreationally. I, yes, I don't do it for money. I only do it. I only do it for the love. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I've, I've been playing video games since.

And the first console I ever played on, well, like, the first video game I ever played was probably an arcade game. It was probably asteroids or something. And then my brother-in-law got an Atari when Atari was a new thing. And I was fascinated by it. I wanted to be over there all the time. Eventually, we got one for Christmas one year. And I absolutely loved it. I had a weird experience where a friend got one of those plug-in consoles that has, like, ancient games in it.

And one of them was adventure. Oh, yeah. And I, it was like the craziest, purest muscle memory. I got through that entire, I got through the whole thing in like 30 seconds. I just, it was just like happening. It was just like the little square. I was moving that little square through this room. I know I go up here, get the magnet.

you know, all that shit. I couldn't believe it. It was really wild. And then I was big on Golden Eye was like the next big gaming thing that I remember. And around that time, we were working on Mr. Show when that game came out. For whatever reason, this, this, we had this one season,

I think it was the third season, was split up into two halves. And so the second half, we were in we had access to this bungalow that was formerly used by I think the Keenan Ivory Wayans writers when he briefly had a late night show

and then in between our seasons that show got canceled they were all gone so we had this bungalow that we could use while we were filming and somebody brought in that had a huge TV and somebody brought in a fucking Nintendo and we played Golden Eye in between

you're like why were we we were rehearsing, and we also, because our season was split up, we had a totally different crew, like different stage managers, these people hated us because all they, we would wait until we were like little kids. We went until the last possible second to go literally like 20 feet to the studio. We were in this bungalow. We just had to walk across the parking lot to the studio. And we were like, uh-huh, yeah, we'll be right there. And I remember her standing in the doorway like she couldn't believe what disrespectful,

unprofessional assholes we were being but it was like we've been doing the show for a while we knew how much time we had and you know and we were like we were the writers and producers of the show like we right you know like Bob and David were sitting there playing the game

you know what I mean so it was it was really weird and I'm sure that we left those those people with a horrible impression of all of us that nobody else would have gotten from, you know, in terms of professionality. And I feel bad to it

for it to this day. But that was the power of that game. And then when the Xbox came out, I was an Xbox guy. We used to, I used to participate in these huge halo parties.

Like land parties? Yeah, yeah. Fellow Mr. Showwriter Jay Johnston. We would have it at his house where we would, where people would bring television sets and Xboxes so we could be all in the same building in different rooms and playing, you know, 16-person capture the flag games. And it was, we did that for like an entire summer,

leaving when it was getting light out, you know, just like people are, we just eat pizza and drink beer and smoke. And it was, it was insane. And we did it for such a long time every weekend. and it was it was like you would go home and the game would be in your head like you'd be on the road and you'd be seeing it like you were seeing Halo and it was which was that's bad you shouldn't be doing that and then I just got my my first PlayStation I got a PS5 which I've hooked up I haven't played anything on it yet but I just hooked it up so I'm now one of those two console people wow yeah that was that when I when I when I I crossed that threshold. And for me, that was the, the PlayStation Nintendo 64 era when I, when I finally got a second console, I'd been all Nintendo up to that point.

That, then it was, then it was just no going back. From that point forward, it was just like, I was buying basically, eventually accumulating everything. But you, were you, so were you gravitating more towards first person shooters and those, was that your genre for a while with Gold 9 Halo? I, I like RPGs and, you know, my favorite, some of the, some of the game, of my favorite games are a Bioshock. Bioshock series. Dishonored, I loved. And now I, my most reason favorite night, I think is an absolutely beautiful game is Red Dev Redemption 2 to the

point where I can't stop playing it online. Like the, when they keep like, you know, providing these, this dumb extra content that's really not that great, but it's a new thing. And so I will keep going back and, you know, going up the ranks of whatever, bounty hunter, naturalist, whatever it is. Because I just love that world so much. I love how open it is. And, you know, it's, it scratches a lot of itches for me, that game. I, I, I just love it.

Can I ask, so I've never played, other than, like, dabbling for like five minutes, Grand Theft Auto Online, and I've never played Red Dead Redemption Online. What is the core? like do you just run around or is they're like I'm taking on this inside of the world there is a smaller game and I'm playing that game it's so like there are little tasks um there's there's a very brief um there's a very very brief story mode online um and then once you're done with that you have uh different uh roles that you take on so you can be a bounty hunter where you're collecting different bounties um

You go, you know, you go all over the map to find these people and, and bring them in for a reward. You have the trader role, which is you are selling goods to other areas. So you can do like short trips, you can do long trips. If you do a long trip, you're now vulnerable to other players on the map. So if anybody else feels like it, they can come and kill you and steal your shit. There is a, the naturalist role is the most recent. one where they introduce these legendary animals that you have to hunt and you have to you you have to sedate them, take a sample, you have to take a picture of them. And then if you want to, that's,

that's to deal with the naturalist boss, who is this woman Harriet that you bring all this stuff to and you sell these things to her. She doesn't like it when you kill animals. But if you want to complete them, you do have to kill them at some point. And if you kill enough animals in a row and then go visit Harriet, she will spray you in the face with some weird drug because she's mad at you, which causes you to pass out. And then she's locked for a while. So it takes her a while to forgive you.

I was a little disappointed that the strange drug did not cause something to happen. Right. It literally is like you just get essentially like roofied in the face. And then her door is locked. Like you can't go visit her anymore. To be fair, most roofing does take place in the face. I don't know that. Sure.

There's a lot of, is that, I can say that because I've been roofied, so it's okay. I thought it like took place in the tummy in the head. Can I just say, just to return to it, as a fan of Mr. Show and a gamer, the idea of you and J. Johnston having a land party to play Halo is mind-bring. blowing like just like that's such a crazy like early 2000s time capsule yeah it was wild it was really like there was a reunion that i was not able to take i was very disappointed i was on the road and i was not able to take take part in it but they got pretty much everybody back uh from those days um and i i i mean i i can't believe that we did it for as long as we did it and jay

lived with his uh then girlfriend and i can't believe that she allowed it to happen for as long as, like, she would, she would essentially, she would, like, say hi at the, at the beginning of the evening, and then she would just go in the bedroom and, uh, like, live her life, you know what I mean? Right. We never, we would never see her for the rest of the evening. And I, she was very, very cool about it. Um, but, uh, yeah, we would, we would play for hours and hours and hours and, and we were, some of us were really good. And four of us, the four of us who were considered the best, the best players one time entered a Halo tournament here in Los Angeles and we were destroyed by some children.

It was humiliating, like so fast, like so fast. Man, that really tracks with my tournament experiences, which is like, you'd be hot shit at your local arcade and you enter into a tournament and like some human destroys you in a way that you're like, how are you reacting this quickly to anything that's happening? I think I've told the story on this podcast before of me going into an arcade in Akihabra in Tokyo and being like, I'll play some Street Fighter 3 and dropping infinite amount of money into the machine and not losing or not winning a single round against a dude who looked annoyed that I was playing the game.

Like there was no like like oh what a this is cute you know like smile and like a little bit of an elbow just like smoking a cigarette hunched over like not even making eye contact unlike round 60 for him like just like infinite time. That I've been running no Nick me.

I've been I've learned it's best just take command in these Zoom situations. There's a lot of talk over top. Right. I feel like the best thing you'd say, no, me first, then you. Playing Red Dead online, there's a lot of people that there's, there's, there's, there's, there's two types of players.

Most people, you see other people, maybe you acknowledge them. Most of the time you don't. Everyone's going about their business, doing their little tasks or whatever. Then there's other people that just like to go on and. shoot people for no fucking reason. There was like, and the thing is you get these ranks, right? Which make you kind of more, I think they contribute to your relative invincibility as the game goes on. And so when it first started online, the highest rank was 100 and you would unlock all these

different things as you went along. Now it's just you keep going up and rank, you don't get any new thing, but you just keep attaining levels. And so I think I'm at like 160 now, something like that. When the other day I'm on there, I'm just trying to go into my moonshine shack and brew up another batch of moonshine to sell to some weirdos. And these guys, like, it was two guys that kept shooting me before I could get in the door. And then I always engage in a thing where it's like, okay, I'll, I'll just keep like

shooting you back until one of us decides we're not going to do this. anymore, right? And then I would look up the players and these guys were, like, their rank was in the 300s or something. It's like, is this fun for you? Like, there's two of you, first of all. Of course, you're,

of course. But I did, it does make me feel like a sense of victory. If I can, if I can be one of these guys and pick them off before the other one kills me, I'm like, at least I'm making it a little bit more difficult for you. But I just don't, like that kind of play,

I just don't find It's just shitty to me You know And also their Their group name was like Sons of Odin or something like that I'm like oh these guys are white supremacists Yes 100%.

The people who I agree that the people Who I just like Their online gaming experiences I just want to grief people I just want to get on And I just want to bully people And make sure they're having a bad time

It's like if your hobby was just like standing in front of a mailbox. It's just like, why, why are you just trying to inconvenience and upset people for no reason? But I guess for, I think for some people, it is genuinely like, they're just kids, right? These are like teenagers who are like,

this is like funny. They better be. These are, these are gentlemen in their like late 40s with good careers. Like an excellent family life. They have, they have a car and two cars, two car garage. They're like just living it large and they load up Red Dead Redemption

because this is their only joy all the rest of it is just like artifice. I got to dox them. I got to dox them all. I want to ask you real quick about because the Bioshock, your Bioshock fandom I remember you mentioned on Doe Boys and I've only played Bioshock one but where like

how do you rank the series? Don't worry about it. Yeah, don't worry about it. Is this like a show that you listen to? It's not important ever. Don't worry about it. You don't need know about this is it on TV will you tell me if it's on TV like is it like something i can find on television you can you can play it on a TV so uh it was almost on TV once yeah then someone put the kibosh on that uh you you so what uh where like how do you rank the series and and why i guess just more generally like why is it a game series that speaks to you

why is it a game series you're such a fan of i loved the the world of it I loved the look of it it's extremely stylized and there was something about the idea of this this city being sunk there was supposed to be this

utopia that was built under the under the sea that appealed to me like I love I love nautical stuff I love the ocean and like this this idea that this crazy you know

Ayn Rand type villain built this undersea kingdom for himself. I don't know. It just, everything about it appealed to me. I love the big daddies. I love the, like it's wild.

It's a wild game. I really loved it. And it's creepy and spooky. And, but not so, it's not so creepy and spooky that it, it freaks you out.

I know this is a concept that Heather can't understand. But, uh, uh, um, it has just enough, like kind of you know

sort of 1950s surreality to it you know that it's and the fact that you're playing this sort of

weird enigma of a character you don't know much about yourself at all as you're going through this the plasmids

like I don't know I thought it was a wildly imaginative game I really really enjoyed it and I like the

I really like the sequels too like recently, maybe a year or two ago, replayed them all, like, in order. Bioshock 2 was a lot better than I remembered. I remember kind of thinking it was kind of a weak follow-up, but I really enjoyed a lot more on a second playthrough. And Bioshock Infinite, I think, is a beautiful game.

And the idea of taking it from under the sea to up in the sky is like such a simple twist that, and what they did with that I thought was great. I really liked it a lot. I did feel like the first Bioshock was a complete thought. Like, even if, you know, like, it's very rare that an IP will drop and it will be an absolutely complete thought. Even if you are like, oh, there's, what was the word they were throwing around at the time? Ludo-narrative dissonance. Like, there's like, you know, there's like some issues of like how you're praised depending on your actions in the game, et cetera, et cetera.

but there was still this feeling of like, oh shit, this is a whole thing. Like a whole thing with like act, act structure in the storytelling itself and like reveals in the storytelling that complement the visual identity of the game. Like it really felt like something. It's rare that that happens, I feel like. Yeah. You know, like I'm really excited to play cyberpunk tomorrow. But cyberpunk, you look at it and you're like, I've seen this and I know what it is, you know?

Like, I'm excited to, like, drop off in, like, Blade Runner Light, and that'll be fun. But, but, but, Bioshock, you, you, there aren't, like, movies that you could, like, cite that are like Bioshock, you know? Yeah, I think, I mean, definitely the, the idea of, like, a libertarian utopia that fails is, like, such, like, oh, that feels like that's new, just narrative ground, like, just, that's just, like, an interesting concept. So for sure, yeah, whereas cyberpunk, I feel like it's just going to be like, the future is fucked. It's like, all right, sure. Well, we should get into this week's game, Bible Adventures. I don't know why that was so funny to me. The future is fucked.

That's like the way the ad ends and people like, you can't say that on television. What? It's like the first. time. So he does fuck in a commercial. Dix out, gentlemen. The future is fucked. This is a got milk ad?

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So Bible Adventures, Heather, was an unlicensed game released in 1991 for NES by Wisdom Tree originally. Yes. It was released in 1991. It is a Christian video game, although the entire content of the game takes place in the Old Testament. Other video games that were released in 1991 include Street Fighter 2, The Legend of Zelda, Link to the Pass, Super Castlevania, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Bible Adventures for the NES and for the Mega Drive and PC. It is consistently on. on lists of the worst games ever made. Sometimes ranking in the top 10. The gameplay is split into three modes. You have Noah's Ark, baby Moses, and David and Goliath. The gameplay itself is deeply reminiscent of Super Mario Brothers 2 U.S., which was dokey, dokey panic in Japan,

where you pick up things, and then bring them to other places or throw them at stuff. Guys, this, this game, this is some rough play. It's truly bad. It's truly wretched. My notes, I wrote two notes on this game, two notes.

One, it's very funny to me that you would go to all of this list, to create a Christian unlicensed video game so that Christian households could be like, you can play this game, kid, and then relegate the gameplay to absolutely absurd reinterpretations of the Bible. You get like the full text of a Bible verse, and then Noah lifts a cow over his head, then stacks a horse or a sheep on top of that, and delivers them into his own. arc there's only like 10 or 12 animals that you can collect uh and it's i i can't even it's so it's so bad and i think we probably played the music in the opening if we went

with the opening that i thought um but the the music is the same for every single level of the game uh in baby moses you have to deliver baby Moses to the end of the Nile. You just carry a baby through the length of a level. You can't kill any of the enemies who are all trying to hurt you. And then in David and Goliath, you're hurting sheep. I didn't. Every time, I'm sorry.

Every time I would come back to the menu, I was like, wait, which was David and Goliath again? Because I don't remember there being a Goliath. And then I realized, oh, it's the other sheep one. Yeah. It's a, the David and Goliath is so, because I played them in sequence. And, um, uh, when I was playing through that this time. And, you know, this play through Noah's Ark. Well, I have a history with this game, which I'll get to.

Oh. Oh. But I played Noah's art. Christian. Then baby Moses. And, and both of those are very like, they're, they're non-volvement. violent, but like, I'm like, okay, I, I understand why these are nonviolent. They're meant to be, like, these are tasks. I have it. I have, I'm, I'm, you know, wrangling animals for the ark. I am escorting this baby. I get why these are, why I don't have an attack. But you get, so you get to David and Goliath. You're like, great, I get to fuck up Goliath. This is finally some action. And no, it's just a worst version of Noah's Ark. You're just hurting sheep again. It's so, it's such a disappointment. But I guess I'll, I'll get to it this way. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, just this now because I just brought it up. So I played this game as a kid. I was not raised in a very

Christian household. My parents were Episcopalian. I went to church on Sundays, you know, is kind of a standard, a very mainstream religious upbringing, but not super religious. But I did have a good friend, one of my best friends in elementary school who was an evangelical. And his parents were evangelical. And so I was exposed to a lot of Christian media and via his dad some gay porn. But that's another layer. Anyway, so. So. So. So, you know, I went to, I, I just consumed a lot of it. And it's all usually very, very bad. And this is no exception.

Sorry, consumed a lot of. A lot of Christian media. Sorry. Yes. I consumed a lot of Christian media. And it's, for the most part, you know, like Christian rock, Christian rap, you know, Christian movies. Even like like, like, Christian, like novels, they're all just like shittier versions of the mainstream stuff.

But they have a built-in audience. And that's very much the case for this game. This game, despite sucking, despite being absolutely borderline unplayable, sold 350,000 copies back of the day, a massive blockbuster and sold them solely through Christian bookstores because it was not an officially licensed Nintendo product. So they could only sell them, like direct through Christian outlets. And Christian parents would go to, like my friend's mom and dad, would go to a Christian bookstore. They'd go to Lighthouse and they'd see a video game for their son. Nintendo that was about the Bible and they'd buy it and that's how my friend ended up with it. So Bible Adventures came on a weird like powder blue cartridge because it was not officially

licensed. And I remember playing this a kid. The only one I remember playing was baby Moses because my friend said it was the good one. And playing through him again now, I think it is the closest to being an actual game of the three of them, right? Because you pick up a baby, you kind of platform through a level, you avoid enemies, you get to the end of a level, you get a congratulation scene, each of the five levels, and there's only five levels, is a little bit different. It actually kind of feels like a game. The other ones are just like, there's just nothing to them. Well, it's, it's religious Yoshi's Island. Like, you just are delivering. Yes, 100%. Baby Mario is baby Moses, and you just got to get them into the end of the level

and hand them off to another Yoshi. The other level, the other level is just errands. Yes, yeah. Guys, it occurred to be while playing this. This unlicensed game bypasses the lockout chip on the NES by creating a voltage spike so that the game can be run. The act of playing the game is committing a sin. Like in order to play the game, you have to break the law, which is such an insane way to start a game if you're a Christian. to be like, well, I do have to ask for forgiveness for this. Well, you, but also render under Caesar, what is Caesar's? Nick, I have to ask.

Wait, what? Did your, what other games did your friend have? So he had, beyond this, he had like just normal Nintendo games. Like, you know, Super Mario Brothers 3, I remember playing this game. How was it called? Like, Astionax, something like that. It was some side-scroller that had a, weird like sounding non you know non word fantasy name like that but this this one i remember and i

remember even like bringing it to my house and playing it on my nintendo and yeah it's just you know it's it's back when you don't have the discerning critical i you're just a kid so you're just like this game is hard you aren't like oh this game is poorly designed and the physics are awful control is terrible you know and and and you know it feels like your every surface is like is is like you're ice skating it's it's you don't quite have i i just remember it being difficult to play. A little bit more about the developer. So you mentioned Wisdom Tree, Heather. So Wisdom Tree specialized in unlicensed Christian games, but before they were Wisdom Tree, they were a company called Color Dreams. And Color Dreams was just a normal NES publisher of moderate

success. They had games like Captain Comic, Challenge of the Dragon, Menace Beach, and Mission Cobra, which all sounded like direct-to-video like, you know, Stephen Seagall movie. And so they were, they were, they, they just basically opportunistically, purely out of like just craven, you know, financial gain, they flipped becoming a Christian games company. And it worked. And so there is like a level of like what you were saying, Heather, of like they, you bypass the, the copy production, you bypass the, the, the Nintendo chip, whatever the fuck it was called so that you could. The 10 NES. Yeah, you, you bypass that chip. There's something to just like, this is like, this is like an old grift. This is like you pander to evangelicals with some slipshod product and you break all the rules to do so and you profit handsomely. I mean, that's like, that's like 20, 20. That's like our past four years.

We've just been seeing that same, same shit. It's just like classic American grift. Yeah. What's great is that a lot of Christians don't pay too much attention. And what makes so much sense to me about this game is, that it's a Christian game that's entirely about the Old Testament because that's what a lot

of evangelicals loves. They love the Old Testament, which is the wrathful God. The only thing they like from the New Testament is Jesus and the only thing they like about him is that he said the only way you can get to heaven is being a Christian. That's it. So this is perfect. It's like

this is a beautiful game. It's got Noah's Ark, David and Clive. Moses, and it has nothing it has nothing about loving anybody it has nothing about doing good works we should Heather you mentioned the music we should we should play it here

because the fact that this is the only track that you have in the entire game is it's just so mind-numbing Matt can we hear a little bit of this yeah here we go Good luck, Devin. This is the only, the only sound created in the game is this. Whether you are gathering animals, rescuing baby Moses,

or facing down Goliath by collecting sheep, this is, this is. the sound of the Lord thy God I can't even find a song in it do you know what I mean like you know that

you have that you have that thing where it like it clicks in you're like oh I now I get the pattern this is just like is it the same every time I don't I don't know that it ever comes back around it's also in like 119 as a time signature

it's like an insane time signature here's what's very weird to me is that they didn't need to do this because you know what's royalty free all hymns if you're gonna make a religious game like you can have so many hymns in there who cares you don't have to pay anyone

the title screen does have one song that isn't this yeah that's right is it is it is it pocketbell's canon I can't even remember what it was it's a box composition yeah it's one of box religious compositions they tried they did they

spent so much time like transcribing that into NES that they were like you also need songs for the levels and the guy was like I don't fucking know

and he just like hit two notes with his fingers Let's reuse the boss theme from Menace Beach Yeah Why did they do like honestly what song sounds more like a video game song

already than bringing in the sheaves Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do to do like you could just have that repeat over and over again. It would be entirely appropriate for these graphics for the look of the game.

No. You got to hear beep boop-pop-bop-bop-bop-bop-bop-bop-bop-bop-bop-bop-bop-bop-bop-bub-bop-bop-ppbop-pbub. So it's really awful to listen to and to look at. The art is just so bad. I mean, you compare it to other contemporary games. The ones Heather, you mentioned, these are games that still look great in 2020,

Sonic the Hedgehog Street Fighter 2. this game looks awful even for its time. It looks like the South Park parody of what Bible adventures would be. Like, the look of the game looks like somebody making fun of the existence of the game. And, like, their faces are sort of like super dodgeball, like that, like, River City Ransom. Like, they have huge expressions and eyes and their, like, little legs wiggle. But it's the game is, like, predominantly. brown in the Noah's Ark level

and then like predominantly sand colored in the other ones, right? Like it's... David and Goliath is predominantly brown because you're in a forest again. It's... The palette is very ugly. You know, the limited colors they have on the

on the Nintendo and even in the Mega Drive port. It's just a very ugly, smudgy game. I'm sorry, finish your thought, Heather? Well, you have all of the colors of of God's creation to work from. This should be a beautiful game. Like, it should be like you're with Noah in the forest. There's light coming through the trees.

You're gathering the animals. You have this heroic task ahead of you. But instead it's like, it's really legitimately like the brown of the arc is the same as the brown of the trees is the same as the brown of the ground. Not even like degrees of change. Let me share the box art with you guys because this is such a great, if you haven't seen it, this is such a great contradiction versus the actual art in the game. Look at the glorious majesty depicted here. Oh, fuck you.

A gigantic Moses, a Noah towering over the ark, David standing over Goliath's corpse with a sling hand. It's just like this amazing, like, piece of art. That is just how dare you. Yeah. Noah looks like Obi-1 Canobi. Like, he's semi-transparent. Oh, for sure, yes. He looks like a forced ghost.

Wait, is he know or is he, is that Moses? Why, Moses is only a baby? It might be Moses parting the seas, but I don't know. Oh. Or maybe Moses just isn't represented here. Well, that's a mistake. I mean, he's a star. But you can see how, like, someone would look at this box and, you know, this back before kiosks or demos, someone would just be like, sure, I'll buy this game. This looks fun. But yeah, completely misleading. So the actual gameplay of, let's see, of the, so of the Noah's Art game, I just want to talk about this real quick. So you're mostly, as Heather was saying, you're stacking farm animals over your heads. The, you know, you're collecting both cows, male and female cats.

and male and female oxen. It is specified in the menu, the same animal. And oxen are all males, but, you know, the game treats them as different entities. And then you... You got to get a female bull. Yeah. And basically, it's just as simple as you walk up to them and you pick them up, except for, at least in the first level. And then the second level, and then I didn't get past the second level, because it's,

It's boring. They're pigs that are slippery. You try to grab a pig and he slips away from you. So you have to throw a hay bale at them. Not so they'll be distracted and eat on it, eat it, but they'll just be knocked unconscious. And then when you knock the pig unconscious, you can pick them up and tote them into the arc. And that's basically as superficial as the gameplay is. But wait, were you able to knock the pig unconscious with the hay bale? Yeah, you have to pick it up and toss it at him. What I did was I got it, I got it near a tree so that they would stop and eat it. And then a monkey would knock them unconscious by throwing a nut from the tree. Oh, wow. I didn't, hey, that's got layers of gameplay, more depth than I, than I understood. Yeah, I could have used less depth. It would have been great to just throw hay bale at them.

So the second level, the animals get a little bit more exotic. turtles, pandas, raccoons, blue jays, blackbirds, eagles, and toucans. So just like, probably just whatever animal assets they had left over from previous games, they were tossing in here kind of arbitrarily. But this one, it's really bad. Baby Moses, as I, as I mentioned, I feel like is the most playable. Apparently, I watched a playthrough, and I watched some speed runs of this game. And it's amazing because some of the speed runs of Bible adventures are like two minutes and 27 seconds.

There's not much going on here. But towards the end of David Goliath, after several levels of collecting sheep, you do eventually get a sling, and there is a fight with Goliath. Oh, wow. And, yeah, and Goliath is just like a bigger version of you, and you throw one rock at him and he dies. He's a final boss who dies from a single hit. So it's pretty anti-climactic. So it's like you can't, there's no way to not kill him. I mean, it seems that way, at least from what I want.

You have to complete the Bible task. That's true. You can't make the Bible not be true. Yeah. Also in the game, there are various tablets you can collect that are, that they both give you health and then they either give you a gameplay tip or they give you a Bible verse when you pick. I got was Bible verses. This is so crazy.

Like, because they look the same, they are placing, look, when you play the game, they're placing press B to pick up an animal on the same level as,

and low, God spoke to it. It's the same textual, like the same font, the same pickup. It's like, every time you're like, is this going to be

some gameplay tip, or is it going to be the word of the Lord? like yeah well heather what is scripture but a collection of hacks i think you just blew my mind they should have just assigned a bible verse to the gameplay tips like press b to run faster leviticus 716 the bible what bothered me about the bible verses was that they weren't really germane to what was going on in the game i thought right right And I assumed it would be like kind of, you know, at least like maybe taken from the story of Noah while you were playing the Noah's arc level.

They would have quotes from that. I mean, the stories are based on Bible stories. Why not put stories? Why not if you, because otherwise what is the point of this? If you're not, if the idea is not to indoctrinate people, but I guess if you're a fly by night organization that's like, I don't know, throw some Bible in there. They love it. And I guess you're not really paying attention. It doesn't mean anything to you.

Yes. I think that's entirely it. They just flat out did not give a shit. Everything is just so arbitrary and half-assed. Yeah, I mean, I guess we should get to our final thoughts on this, Heather. It's time for our review crew. crew. So we'll each try to come up

with one positive thing to say about this game and then end by giving it a numerical decimal rating. I can begin. I guess the positive thing I'll say

is I like that if you finish a level in the baby Moses, I like if you just don't bring the baby with you, you can still finish a level and you get the dialogue, good work,

but you forgot baby Moses. I think I think I think it's a screen cap of that because it really made me laugh. Yeah. It's like they didn't want to program in a fail state. They're just like, ah, fuck it. Just tell them they didn't. They forgot the baby. It wasn't good work.

Like you know, that was not at all. Who cares if you make it to the end alone? Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, I mean, this was a, so this game being unlicensed, it lacked the Nintendo seal of quality, which was a big significant thing back then because that was a, that was meant to be like this game is not complete trash. And there were a lot of very, very bad Nintendo games with the NES. But, uh, you know, the whole Nintendo seal of quality, the whole

approval process was instituted to, because of back in the Atari era, there was so much shovelware and parents were so frustrated that they were just like that all these terrible games were overloading the market and drowning out anything of any quality this is like a game because it's circumvented that process it's it's extra bad it's like it's as bad i think as you can get and still kind of be a game um i honestly think because of of how poorly it controls how flat and substance-less the gameplay is, and also just because of what this represents, just like it being a fucking cash grab for, you know,

just fucking pulling one over on evangelicals and just like cashing in on just like this fucking awful game. I mean, just like every part of this, to me, I think this is maybe the worst thing we've played all year. So I think my score, I think I'm going to go I'm going to give this a this a zero I'll give this a Bible-esque uh Wyger zero colon zero as my score wow um Heather how about you so in a video game you can do anything like you can pro like we can make things float

you can do you can have powers you can do anything so you could render in an NES game, the presence of God, because shit could happen around the characters. Like, they could have, like, some kind of, like, magical protection, or they could hear a voice or, like, you could, like, actually represent God in the game. This game, I find funny as an atheist, because God is not present in it at all. He does not make an appearance in a game called Bible Adventures, the story of his existence. Like, so for me, uh, as a, you know, as a non-believer, I, I, I, I really enjoy that you're just playing three

humans doing insane tasks with no, like, not being compelled by, like, even like a digitized voice that was like, grow forth and save animals. Like, nothing. There's nothing. just like that crazy music and you're an old man in a robe grabbing a pig um um the other thing is so i you know i date a woman my girlfriend uh is uh is a believer uh is a believer and she said don't talk about me being a believer on the podcast and i said but any people know that about you you talk about it in interviews and she's like well don't talk about it and

And she's like, you can talk about this conversation, but don't talk about that. And I was like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to rag on Christians. I don't do that in the house. Why would I do it on the podcast? And she's like, well, just don't. And I was like, okay. So I feel like I've done a good job of that. That being said, zero.

This game gets zero. Matt, what do you think? So I'll say that my positive, I mean, I have two positive. of things. One, I just like the idea, in any media, when somebody has to catch a slippery pig,

I love it. I just love to see it. Just the idea of that. What are your top five? It can be from any media. What are your top five catching a slippery pig moments? You know,

any sort of thing where it's, you know, set at some sort of like county fair Like, okay, well, Paul, you got me. I don't have an example, but I guess because there's so, there are too many to name. And I, I just love the idea of it. It's very funny. If you had to list your top one instance of someone trying to catch a slippery pig, what would it be?

Well, since you got my back against the wall here, I am going to say Bible Adventure. Okay, okay, okay. my other favorite thing or my other positive thing is that it reminds me of the reason for the season and it's fucking Santa Claus baby I love Santa

he's not in it either but if I had to pick between Christianity and Santa I'm picking Santa baby and you know I'm sitting here and sort of thinking about what Heather said earlier about you could put God in the game and there are games with gods in them

famously god of war has several different gods but that is made that is not made by people who take it so seriously that they think that that's real so it's a little more fun a little more interesting crados would lay waste to everyone in this game uh so i you know as as a non-believer i simply must give this a negative six six six hell satan me oh oh my god also i'm not sure that cratos could kill baby moses i believe he's unkillable in the game. Like, I believe you throw him as hard and as far as you want. He takes no damage. You can throw him in the river and fail. That's an insta fail. Oh. Yeah. Which is weird also because that's where he belongs. You're supposed to deliver him to the river. He's supposed to be

in the river. It's very confusing. All right, PFT, something positive. Your thoughts, your score. I will say that the positive thing comes from a negative. When I first started playing this, I was so annoyed to be playing on a on a laptop um it really bothered me the the the the the controls menu was just about impenetrable beyond the first four commands so it's like what they would say uh four equals a well i don't know what a does so there was there was a lot of trial and error and and switching back and forth to to remember but once i started to get the hang of it it did give me a little nostalgia for games like that and like games that you couldn't play in the proper thing, but you had to learn how to play in a different way.

It was frustrating at times because I'm a terrible typist. And so I would hit the wrong key a lot of the time while I was trying to hit the right key. But when I got in a in a rhythm and was getting it like going for a good stretch, it was satisfying just to not be annoyed. So if I had to give this numerical score, I would probably give it a zero. Wow. Wow.

Yeah, really a really poorly received game there Heather, but you know what? Maybe we're wrong. Maybe we were wrong, Nick. We've got some reviews from all over the internet that present a contrarian opinion to what we've just voiced here on the podcast. I've got one from Amazon.com. It is a five-star review, and it says,

this game arrived very quickly. It works great. Hopefully we can use this as a teaching tool for our children as they become interested in video games. This review is posted in 2016. So let's break down a couple of years. One, somebody is using an NES in 2016. Two, they went on Amazon and purchased the game Bible Adventures, tested it, and their children are currently too young to be interested in games.

So this five-star review, it implies a lot. And, but it's a positive review. So maybe we were wrong. Nick, what do you got? I'm guessing that was a grandma situation. Grandma, grandpa. No, it's so hopeful. It's so hopeful.

I'm sorry, Nick. The name of the person who wrote this review is Travis H. So it could be a grandpa. Yeah, there's no grandpa named Travis. I have a game facts review by Wild Card with a Y. This is going to be nuts. This is from August of 2002. Bible Adventures on the 8-bit NES was a groundbreaking title.

It has never gotten much press unless you count Christian haters attacking it. If you're wanting to play an awesome 8-bit set, side-scroller, then Bible Adventures is for you. If you are a parent wanting to finally have a good moral-themed game for your children, then Bible adventure is for you. Who is the game not for? If your heart is filled with hate and you hate goodness, then

you will probably not like Bible adventures. If you hate Christians, then you probably will not like Bible adventures. All others go out and buy this hidden treasure right now, rating 10 out of 10. There's no morals to the game. No, none. No. No

discussion of morality at all. No. Yeah, just as a superficial trappings of Christianity, but there's no messaging behind it. I mean, was there, before each story, they slap up a bunch of text that I guess gives you the backstory to what your task is. But I don't know that it even, does it even indicate, like in the Noah round, does it even give you an idea of why God is doing this? No, it doesn't give much context And if you get it all the way It does. It says that God is angry And like it starts with being like

He's going to destroy the earth Like it lays it out for you God is going to destroy the earth Collect the animals But it does not say why God is going to destroy No, no no no Yes Do you have any more Nick? I got another one here

I have one more Okay great Do you want to read yours? How can you each have more than one. All right. For people who are expecting an adult game, this is not it.

When I was a kid, I was homeschooled, and we always got treats for good report cards. This was one of those treats. My and my two brothers would play this game for hours on end. We especially loved Noah's Ark.

It was fun, child-friendly, and something we look back on fondly. My little brother and I have both been on a quest to find a working copy and a working NES console so we can play it again. The title of this review,

this game was beyond epic, written in 2014. Wow. Man. Five stars. I have to think there's part of it is this, these were kids who maybe grew up

in weird households where this was their one game. Yeah. And you just have a strong nostalgic attachment to it, rather. Like if you could geotag all these reviews

that come from the footloose town. I mean, what I loved about that review is that you're homeschooled, but also get report cards. Like, that's like, I don't, I feel like that's vestigial at that point. You don't need, like, you're, you're only interacting with one person. They know how you're doing. Who is the report card for? Like, it's, the teacher is the. is the parent.

Show this to your remaining parent. Make sure they sign it. Also, if you're the teacher and your one student is doing poorly, doesn't that reflect more on you than them? One would think so. Yeah, like if you're going to be like, well, my son is failing the class that I'm teaching, doesn't that make you go, maybe it's,

maybe it's me raises a lot of questions what do you got I have one more this is actually a negative review but I like this one this is short as a game facts review

by username Arcade this is from October of 2002 warning game does not go along with the Bible one out of 10 it's true it's true

it does not go along with the Bible it doesn't go along with the Bible guys and look arcade you may think he's all about games but he's also about the bible i i wish that so in the story of noah there are animals that he leaves behind and i wish that there had been like unicorns and stuff that were trying to trick you to get onto the on to the art oh yeah like

that would have been so hype dinosaurs yeah please they speak like a slu The slippery pig is running away, but the dinosaur's like, Good, sir, I've bought you my cloak and my staff. Would you consider letting me on to your arc? What harm have we done to you? Hey, no, I noticed you left the talking dinosaurs out there. It's kind of like the coolest animal. I would have liked you to make that a priority over the pigs.

So I would have brought them on. but it took me three hours to catch that slippery pig. It's time for the question block. All right, this one's from at Rachelizabeth 16 on Twitter. They write, I recently finished Winwaker for the first time. And a few enemy sounds felt super new and unique, especially the mini blin and the Cargaroc. This is more to full.

finding Matt. Imagine how I feel, doing this in front of you. Matt has always just read the question block for the first time. He chooses them blindly. Well, I picked it. No, I picked it before, and I do read it because I'm like, oh, that's a good question. But what we are finding out is that I'm just bad at reading. But I'm not good at reading.

Wait, do you have the sounds? I want to hear these sounds. I want to hear these animals. Okay. So I'm not good at. anything either because I don't have the sound. Hold on. I'm not good at anything either.

No, no, no. What is the name of it? What is the name of it? Wind Waker. K-A-R-G-R-O-C. And then the mini-blank. K-A-R-G-O-K-A-R-G. Oh, it's one of the first, it's Wind Waker Kag-R-R-R-Sound, is the first thing.

When you start typing in Wind-Waker K, it brings it up. So, um, do you want to play it or should I? Play it? I'll just press play so then we can... Are you good at this? I can... This I can do. All right.

Nice. It's a B? It's like a bird? It looks like a, like some sort of like bird. What? They're like, yeah, these like big birds. Wait, the Cockerock sound is just a bird. It sounds kind of like a sheep

It sounds like that but it is it is a bird Are you playing a clip of the sheep from Noah's Ark? No So yeah it looks like these like just big birds That sound apparently was not only notable For the person who sent in the question But also for people on YouTube Who made videos dedicated to that sound

They like it But to finish off the question here, you always, so the reason they say they like that sound is because you always hurt them before they saw them. What NPC slash enemy specific sounds do you love or fear? Ooh, good question. Well, I love that baby crying in PT. That's great. Yeah, that is terrifying. I was going to say, well, what we're talking about crying babies, the crying, we talked about Yosh's Island earlier, but the crying Mario.

Praying Baby Mario in Yoshi's Island is like such good sound design. And they actually made it intentionally like loud so that you would go and find baby Mario so that you would know that it was your priority. That's one that sticks out to me. But as far as enemies, as far as ones where you just know that you're in the shit when you hear that sound approaching. I mean, I guess for me, it's in my memory because we played Last of Us part two this this year. the clicker sound just like the just like those those sounds of just like that you know uh whatever that fungal sort of infection coming out of like a a a throat is just like so to me that always just kind of makes me shiver a little bit and and lets me know that I'm about to enter some

sort of combat encounter where I may be in some trouble as well as the that any like honestly all of those those enemies because I feel like the bloaters too uh they're just like they have like like, you know, when you hear them coming, you hear those heavy footsteps and you hear that, you know, you hear those sounds, you're just like, oh, shit, this is going to get real bad. I don't know, Heather, PFT, any other enemy sounds, any other things come to mind when you're thinking of sound design? I love the sound of the bears in Red Dead, that there are these gigantic grizzly bears that come upon you very quickly.

there's a couple like panthers, there's like cougars, there's a couple of like big predators that they signal their arrival, but only when they're very close. And so you don't have a lot of time to react. In the Bioshock games, something that makes those games too scary for me is that like you,

sometimes you can hear like an enemy like very far down like an echoey hallway. Yes. And you know that there's nowhere for you to go really, but that way. And you can just kind of hear them sort of like rambling. and screaming to themselves. And that's always, I mean, that's an answer for sounds I don't like.

I hate that. That's like one of my least favorite things ever. You know, it's an awesome sound that's, you know, not like a, that's a UI sound, but it is very much in this context is we just had Hideo-Cogember, the exclamation point sound, the enemy sees you sound in the Metal Gear Solid game. That blank? Yeah, that's a great sound. Yeah, that's a good sound.

As long as we're just talking about, like, good sounds. I really like the drumbeat that goes on Yoshi when you land on them in Super Mario World. Yeah, that's great. Came out the same year as Bible Adventures. Super Mario World. Also, I think the sound design in Animal Crossing is off the charts. like beautiful. Like the,

you go into that museum when it rains and you're near the the store like it because it's a tin roof it makes a different sound like the attention to detail in that sound design is just really satisfying. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. There's a, there's a, there's a lot of that in Hades, which I'm playing now. I won't talk in too much depth because I don't spoil it for people because I know that people are just getting into it.

But it's got some really awesome sound design. and music as well. I wish we'd played Hades this week. Hit us up on Twitter and Instagram. I'd Get Played Pot or send us an email. I'd Get Played at Gmail.com. It was a voicemail at 6162. Played. That is 616-275-2933.

PFT. Paul F. Tompkins. Thank you so much for being here. We're so happy we get to have you on the show. Thank you for having me. I'm a fan of the show. It was great to be on with you guys. Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you for saying that. It was great to have you. Great to have you. What would you like to plug? In addition to the two podcasts that Nick mentioned at the beginning, I also have a podcast that I do with my wife called Stay of Homkins. We started it during quarantine. We thought we would be done by now, but we're not.

And that comes out. We have like a little date night where we, right after dinner, we record the podcast. We throw it up on line immediately. You can get it late Friday night. And I also have a, I'm weirdly enough, the co-host of the official Star Trek podcast, Star Trek the pod directive with the fantastic Tony Newsom. And we just finished our season one, the first, which was nine episodes, they're available to binge now, wherever you get your podcasts. And we are recording

season two now. Wow. Rad, check all that out. And Matt, tell us what's going on for next week. Okay, well, next week, we're doing a special episode. It's our year-in-review episode. So we'll see you next week. Goodbye, everyone. Happy holidays. Goodbye, Bucket. Edge. Hi, I'm Nicole Byer. Hi, I'm Sashir Zameda. And this is the podcast, Best Friends. And we're here at HeadGum.

So this is just a podcast where we just talk. We're best friends. We talk. And then we have a segment where we answer questions and queries. So audience members can ask questions about friendships and we can answer them to the best of our abilities. Yes. We are professional friends. Subscribe to Best Friends on Spotify, Apple Podcast, PocketCast, or wherever you get your podcast and watch videos on YouTube.

New episodes drop every Wednesday. That's the middle of a work week. I was deeply unhelpful to you during that whole. thing. You are. I'm really sorry. I felt the support. I was so okay. I was trying to be supportive. Yeah. But I was like, I don't know, reading seems pretty hard right now. It's a lot. I think you did good. Thank you so much. You're welcome.