Noahs Ark

NOAH'S ARK

Platform: NES
Developer: Konami

It just isn't funny anymore. This is the third time I'm writing about a game where you control Noah. This time, animals all over the world are kidnapped by various cultures. In the first level, for instance, you have to travel across Europe to save a rabbit from the Romans. Yes. You have to travel across a continent, killing all sorts of animals and people (well, they'll be dead when the cataclysm comes anyway) to get one single goddamned rabbit from a culture that won't exist for another 6,000 years.

What separates this game from all other Bible-related games featured on this site, is that this one isn't created by Wisdom Tree, but by Konami. Unlike Wisdom Tree, Konami doesn't have a god to answer to, and this of course results in a game that's ever further away from the original cataclysm story. In fact, saying that Escape From L.A. is based on the life of Helen Keller would be closer to the truth than calling this game Noah's Ark. If a game is about an old guy who gathers animals, lives on a boat for thirty days, repopulates the earth, invents wine and drinks enough of it to pass out in front of his sons, it can be called Noah's Ark. If it's about a senile old bastard who imagines ancient cultures have kidnapped animals, it can't. Furthermore, I can't remember where in the Bible it says that Noah destroyed Satan. But now I know it was the Prince of Darkness himself that manipulated the Japanese into capturing a panda! Oh, you crafty devil you! Well, all incoherence aside, this game is not even close to being as cruddy as the Wisdom Tree ones. The graphics are pretty good given the limitations of the NES, and at least it's possible to make Noah do what you want this time (in Bible Games, he would drop his cows, start climbing a tree and get killed by a woodpecker if you wanted him to walk left). This means playing Noah's Ark is only marginally more painful than having to live in a volcano.
	At least, they didn't leave out the part where Noah grew wings and fought the Inca sun god.	Oh no! Caesar is born 6,000 years early, and has ordered to capture the rabbit Noah had in mind!
	The Abominable Snowman has teamed up with the Inuits to kidnap a seal.	It's a good thing Noah wore a thick blanket when he went to the South Pole. Special appearance by Keiko.
	After numerous unsuccessful diets, Satan decided to grow lots of chest hair to cover up the pot-belly.	Most historians agree that the world would be quite different hadn't Noah been too drunk to remember the Alamo.

In this game, you kill the Romans, Native Americans, Egyptians, Japanese, Inuits, Aborigines and Incas. At least God's servant isn't discriminating.