I think there was a song once written about the arch enemy of this game... something about being the Great Deceiver... oh, no, that's Pretender... way different than the weirdness going on in this game.

While in essence it keeps up the same format as it's large console brethren on the PS2 (and I heard Xbox Original) it is a completely different retarded beast when it comes to it's port on the GBA (way way different).

While the PS2 version is primarily a game about playing a biblical quiz show in order to ascend to heaven... so I guess all the contestants must be dead since they're working to ascend to heaven... which was a little different but won't really catch on until that other game (with the game show buzzer peripheral) hit sometime later, this has quizzes but not set in a game show style format.

Instead the story opens and this boy and girl (interchangeable since there's nothing really distinct or unique about either, which is I suppose a benchmark in bad horrible Christian gaming) are asking their mom and dad about the Armor of God... which just so happens to be in the next game I'm going to talk about shortly, but more on that in abit. Seems they think it's cool, but they don't know the Armor of God is mostly symbolic and more of a spiritual protection against evil (wonder if it's good against the evils of Christian Doctrine and Hate Preaching... hmm... my Armor of God gives me +12 saving throw versus Homosexual Bashing by Mad Preacher! Wacky Youtube Christian Hatemonger fails to brainwash me into his evil hatred of liberals and freethinkers thanks to Armor of God!)

Yeah... that'd be nice. Instead the Armor of God is used against The Great Deceiver, and wow the kids can't even wait to go to bed before they start having delusional visions of The Great Deceiver and his minions (the Not So Great Deceivers) breaking out of jail or hell or Pat Robertson's house and spreading their lies all over the place! (Gay marriage hurts everyone, equality is evil and all must bow before the great Godiccus Primicus the Lordicus... were Christians always this wacky or am I just noticing it more now).

You must hunt down the Great Deceiver(s) through a bland pointless top down view of a representation of the Holy Land of Biblical

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Times... except the game animators seemed unable to stop themselves from mixing in out of place large Christian churches (which of course didn't exist in biblical times in the form they're presented in the game) with the more accurate old world buildings. So how do you go about finding the Great Deceiver(s)? Well first off you wander about a village fighting little beast minions of the Deceiver while questioning villagers about... what? Strange I just walked up to this person and they're not saying a word, and I can't interact with them at all... what? Turn up the volume what do you mean... wait... OK my volume is turned up high so what am I...

"I see a Deceiver... that way!"

...say what?

Yeah, did I mention this game has ZERO interaction with it's people in the game? NPC characters only have audio clips attached to them where they point and say there's a Deceiver over there, or you should check over there, or there's a path clear over in that direction. Sure, I guess we could have had fully interactive NPC all about the game and they could have told us lots about the ancient world and biblical times and made this a real learning experience... but of course to Christians in these sorts of games learning = a cult like memorization of biblical scripture without any freewill learning or assimilation of facts in a way that allows you to draw your own conclusions about what is being taught. It's simple here, memorize these scripture and be prepared to answer questions to make sure you have memorized your content like a good mindless droid. Hmm... and somebody just went on you tube claiming Christians think often... if these games are any indication there is no actual attempt to foster deep independent thought in Christians, these game primarily promote the drone like mindless memorization of content and nothing more. How can you claim to be able to think for oneself if you insist on presenting content that demands only mindless obedient memorization? Boggles the mind.

The rest of the game is just as broken. Buildings are mostly background unless it's entering the out of place large church for a piece of the Armor of God (once you out quizzed the Deceivers and gained a piece of the key needed to enter), or short underground paths between areas. As

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for the enemies? You do have small insectoid minions who are actually a serious threat (ignore them too long and they can actually slay your character, who respawns at the start of the level and has to do the level again from the start). So how do you defeat the minions? Did God actually arm you with a righteous sword, or a merciful mace or even a humble shepard's crook to bring the smack down on evil? No... get this... you defeat these little minions by... jumping on top of them Mario style... no, I'm not making it up, you actually have to do a little jump attack to smoosh the enemies like you would if you were Mario and they were Goombas. What the heck?!? Also as you beat them (or just lying about the world) you can find scrolls which contain bible scripture (which of course relate directly to the quizzes your given as you "battle" the Deceivers), however as if to further push the whole game's theme of robotic memorization each scroll can only be used once (when you press Select and enter the pause screen). Which means you have to memorize each and every piece given to you when you press the pause button for each quiz... or just have a second GBA (or a GBA and a DS to play Bible Game on) and a copy of the King James Bible for the Game Boy Color (which isn't as easy as it sounds since it's a pretty rare release with only so few copies presently available, one of those hard to come by coveted releases sought after by die hard Nintendo fanatics).

As for the Deceiver you have to run up to him and grapple him... upon which you are brought to a quiz screen and have to answer X amount of questions right in order to "defeat" the Deceiver and get a piece of the key (which increases with each world your beat by one, with more Deceivers and more pieces of key per world past the first). Now I heard criticism that a lot of the questions are too hard for a kid to know if they're playing it, but I only have a minimal knowledge of the bible and I did well enough in the questions (once again it's the robotic memorization thing in that even if

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you get some wrong you'll be asked the same question again and once you memorized the answer it's the same every time that question is asked of you, though they do change the location on the row of answers just so you're not tapping the same button over and over again, memorizing the answer instead of the letter next to the answer).

And that's it. There's nothing more to be said about this game. You memorize bible content, run around a bland shallow wading pool of a world not interacting with anyone looking for Deceivers. Once found you answer a set amount of questions and win a key piece, and then repeat until you found all the pieces and can enter the one out of place church in the area to get a piece of the Armor of God and progress to the next level. Wow... that's stupid.

The game works on a password feature but it's a rather simple one compared to most (more from a censorship point of view in that they didn't want kids to spell nasty things instead of a practical stance), and you can simply just leave yourself a note on your cellphone concerning your password if you need to stop your biblical salvation via Game Boy Advance format... as if you'd actually bother with this tripe long enough to want to save your password and continue where you left off.

Anything else to say about this game? The world is interesting except for the fact it's a bland backdrop for chasing down winged demons and making them quiz you about the bible. If there was more exploration, ability to converse with the people, side quests (one dropped ball in this game is that there's no ability to be tasked with helping the citizens you come in contact with while searching for the Armor of God, using them as nothing more than just living sign posts to the next quiz section) anything to expand your knowledge of the world of Biblical times in a way that is more than just robotic teaching of scripture would have been a nice thing.

Other than that there's nothing more to say about this game short of it being a retarded load of bull that nobody should ever play... ever. I give this loathsomely Borg like Bible memorization offense one Not So Great Deceiver out of 5.