When I first heard of The Bible Game, I wanted to review it because I thought a game whose focus was Bible trivia might be interesting. Also, in times past, developers have released “Christian” games and they normally aren’t very good as far as production quality, etc., so I wanted to make sure this game got a fair chance instead of someone possibly coming in with a preconceived notion.

Well, as far as production quality goes, this game gets high marks, or at least, much higher marks than similar games of the past that may be placed in the same category. The Bible Game sets itself up in a “game show” scenario, where you and up to 4 of your friends (or A.I. in some cases) will battle it out in mini-games and trivia. But more specifics on that in Gameplay.

The graphics aren’t bad and are more along the lines of “cutesy”. There's a selection of kids that you can choose as your character, all fitting pretty generic stereotypes. There’s the bouncy girl in pink, the Cub Scout kid, the guy in cowboy gear, the nerd with the pencil behind his ear – you get the idea. Wholesome goodness here. The game show look is fairly good, and although not up to the standards of, say, Jellyvision’s You Don’t Know Jack!, still easy enough on the eyes. The graphics in the mini-games are not quite as high end and are passable, but certainly nothing to write home about.

The developers decided to include some Christian pop songs in the game and these will occur during the mini-games, however there are only a total of 6 songs in all and you only get to hear about 30 seconds or so (or however long the mini-game lasts), so it’s more jarring than anything else to listen to only a portion of a song. However, I do applaud them for selecting some of the hot Christian artists/bands for inclusion: Jeremy Camp, Newsboys, TobyMac, Kutless, FM Static and Chris Tomlin each have a song here.

The only voicework you will hear is that of the announcer and he can get annoying. I know the developers were just trying to get kids excited about the game, but having him say lame remarks like, “ Oh, I feel the Wrath of God coming on” or shouting “Do Unto Others” as the game begins merely becomes somewhat laughable.

The Bible Game is set up as a game show called Do Unto Others! and can be played with either one player (against A.I. opponents) or up to four actual players. You choose your character and your name, although you will be called by your “color” and not the name you select. The game begins and the first character (you) has control of the board. The board is composed of a panel of squares, each with a monetary amount. They start to light up randomly and you must “stop” the board to win that number of points for the round. The higher the better, of course. Then, a game event is triggered. Game events range from "Testament Trivia" to "Do Unto Others" (where you select what number of extra points will be given to the player with the lowest number of points) to the "Wrath of God" (where the player who is unfortunate enough to reveal that event gets all of his/her points wiped out for that round). "Wrath of God" is a round ender, so it’s always a gamble the more squares that are revealed because somewhere, "Wrath of God" is lurking. The not-so-brave player can always choose to pass control of the board to the next player to be on the safe side.

If "Testament Trivia" comes up, an Old Testament trivia question (one of 1500) pops up on the screen with four choices as possible answers, each with a corresponding button on the game pad. Points are awarded based on who buzzes in the quickest. The "Blessing Game" square is one of eight short games for the person who selected that square, basically a chance to earn some quick points without fighting it out with other players. The "Challenge Game" square could be one of 12 mini-games, each with an Old Testament Biblical theme. These are fast-paced action games like riding the spout of water from Jonah’s whale while jumping through hoops in the sky, or climbing Jacob’s Ladder, etc. Overall, these games might be fun to begin with (although some definitely are not), but personally, I quickly lost interest in them.

Well, as with other multi-player games, The Bible Game’s difficulty will depend on your opponents and their skill level. However, I found that when playing A.I. opponents, the game seemed unfairly slanted towards one particular player. It seemed he always got the "Blessing Game" and I always got the "Wrath of God". Just fair warning, as it can be really frustrating.

The other difficulty issue was rooted mainly in control issues with the mini-games. I will also address these in the Game Mechanics section, but some games just didn’t make much sense and your skill didn’t seem to affect the outcome.

As I mentioned earlier, a number of the mini-games had control problems. While games like "Jacob’s Ladder", which has you climbing up a ladder, or "Tower of Babel", where you outline sections of a wall to destroy them, were fun and easy to control, games like "David and Goliath" were just no fun because the control was so wonky. Rather than simply throwing a rock at Goliath, you have to time your button presses to line up the shot on the horizontal and vertical plane. It was a pain! In addition, for some odd reason, the players would change their position on the board for each mini-game. To clarify, I was always Player One, yet in some mini-games, my orientation might be first in the row of four, whereas with others, it could be third. So with each mini-game, you have to first find your character, then gear up to play. I found I would focus on the first character in the row and get halfway through the mini-game before realizing that character was not me. It’s a small thing, but very frustrating.

One last thing to note about The Bible Game is the fact that the game is a CD and not a DVD. I tried it on two older PS2’s and it would not run, however I had no problems running it on my slimline PS2. Just be aware that if your system is an older model, the game may not play.

All in all, The Bible Game is not a horrible game, it just has many frustrating moments and is not very fun. If your child already has a PS2, he will probably opt to play other games that are more fun over The Bible Game. If your child does not have a PS2, I personally don’t see a parent investing $179 on a system only to play this Bible-based game. I do commend Mass Media for trying to bring wholesome videogame entertainment to the table for those parents who are looking for an alternative to the violent games that are out there. But once again, if your child already has a PS2, then you know that there are already many non-violent and family friendly games available and once again, this one is definitely not at the top of the list.