What's
this? A Bible game for the Genesis? I made sense of this by concluding
that the brethren at Wisdom Tree sought to express their appreciation for
the name that Sega chose for its 16- bit system. But the instructions say
that another version (which I have never seen) appeared for the SNES, too,
so that shoots down my theory. In any event, I've finally convinced Joe
that DP has gone too far in upholding the wall of separation
between Church and Silicon; 1 Cor. 18-24 can be interpreted to mean that
it's high time for a little video catechism.
Let me start out by noting that Exodus for the Genesis is almost exactly like the NES rendition, save for the slightly improved graphics. The game is sort of an action puzzler that borrows a little in its play and its appearance from titles like Boulder Dash, Solomon's Key, Gauntlet, and even Dig Dug.
You are Moses and you face a screen is filled with various squares and icons. Some of the squares are marked with an M for Manna, and you must collect all of the Manna squares to advance. Standing in your way are other squares that must be blasted out by a tap of the A button (which enables Moses to fire or "Speak the Word of God"), and ones that can be moved, and ones that cannot be eliminated and so must be circumnavigated. As you blast through the obstacles you reveal and pick up question mark icons, power ups, and so on, and there are a number of villains to contest with as well.
After you pick up all the Manna and five question marks, you advance to the quiz screen, where you face multiple choice questions on the book of Exodus. For each one that you get right, you win a Bible; ten Bibles earn you an extra Moses. Every so often you get a "reward scene"-- a graphic rendition of some scene from Exodus! As you can imagine, these are far more rewarding than the scenes in Bubble Bath Babes. All together, there are 100 puzzle/mazes in Exodus, and while I didn't clear them all, I can say that some offer a bit of challenge.
Actually this game was a little better than I expected. There's little original here and the graphics are on par with a good NES game (meaning the graphics in the NES version kinda stink), but the gameplay and the control are okay. As an educational tool, this might be a bit disappointing to the Ned Flanders crowd. I didn't exactly feel spiritually refreshed after playing; in fact, after a couple minutes of blasting bricks and dropping boulders on soldiers, I didn't know I was playing a "religious" game at all. Most of the questions I encountered on Exodus required more wrote memorization of fact than understanding of principles. There are a few corkers in the instructions. For example, some of the squares are called "Weaknesses of Man," and we learn that these weaknesses "cannot be eliminated" but they "can be pushed." Damn right.
Considering all the emphasis on the Spoken Word of God, there sure as hell (oops) isn't much to say about sound. My cartridge didn't have any, even though I bought it new in the box. I suppose I could tape the music off the NES version or just play a tape of my church choir. In all, I value this more as a collector's item than as a game, though the Wisdom Tree carts aren't terribly uncommon (at least for the NES) in the Bible Belt and I doubt they will ever be as sought-after as the religion-based carts for the Atari 2600.
