Hello and welcome to the second edition of Kima's Retrospective Reviews. I doubt these will be very regular, but I'll probably do them every once and a while. BTW, this being a complete review, there may be spoilers galore... however, this particular game has a very basic plot anyway, so whatever. In this second episode of KRR, I will review perhaps the only half-decent bible-based video game in existance... "Captain Bible in Dome of Darkness" for the PC.
"Captain Bible" (I'll abreviate the title from now on) is, quite obviously, a Christian game. Most members of this genre tend to be pretty bad, be they subpar platformers (Bible Adventures), esoteric quizzes that even the target audience has difficulty with (The Bible Game), or RTS titles that portray Christians as genocidal maniacs (Left Behind: Eternal Forces). "Captain Bible", meanwhile, combines scripture-based puzzles, third-person combat, and maze navigation is a rather compelling way.
First off, lets get the plot covered. Some futuristic human city has been encased in a Dome of Darkness, controlled by the "cybers" who, within this dome, lie and deceive the trapped citizens. Captain Bible of the Bible Corps (yeah, bear with me here) has been sent inside the dome using a special teleporter in hopes of releasing the city; in the process, however, his computer bible is erased of verses. This, people, is why we should continue the use of paper-based bibles. Anyhow, numerous single-verse consoles are scattered throughout the various buildngs of the city, allowing you to reacquire various verses. Leave the building, though, and a cyber will erase all your verses, so try to liberate one building at the time.
Each building (I can't remember the exact number) has numerous seperate chambers. The hallways are fairly basic, sometimes having a room doorway, a verse station, and/or a cyber enemy (I'll talk about them later). Doorways sometimes lead to high-speed hallways full of cybers you must avoid, cyber traps, prayer rooms, and the final chamber with the trapped human (again, more on that later). Prayer rooms act as health stations and can provide you with special equipment if you have the appropriate verse (the Sword of the Spirit, for example). Faith is your "health" bar, hence how prayer revitalizes you. I can fully understand how getting a verse wrong can decrease your faith, but not how a timed fire trap in a hallway would do so (unless Captain Bible inately thinks "God dammit!" as opposed to "Oh god, it hurts!" when suffering so).
Anyhow, back onto those blasted cybers. For the most part, they are content to simply sit tight and do nothing. If you talk to one, however, it will tell you a CYBER LIE (big letters and all); to counter it, you must use an appropriate verse to denounce the lie. Get it wrong and you lose a little faith; get it right and you enter combat mode. Combat is entirely optional (you can set combat to automatic if you don't like it), but its a basic "attack its weak point for massive damage" opponent that occassionally strikes back. Either way, it adds a little action to an otherwise bible-thumper plot. The trapped humans are similar to cybers, except that they are inside a specific room and require a number of verses to more difficult lies. After releasing the humans, they will overly enthusiastically head over to the city's giant mech (odd, yes, but bear with me).
After freeing all the humans, you comandeer this giant mech to destroy the Dome's generators. At each generator, one of the humans will express doubts and should be calmed with a specific verse (for some reason I forget, you still have a few verses with you, despite the erasing cyber that attacks you every time you exit a building). Get it wrong and you die; no second chances. Finally, at the main generator, Captain Bible himself falls prey, but get saved (hopefully; you can screw up here as well) by the citizens elsewhere in the mech (again, by verse-reading). After a dramatic standoff, the final generator is destroyed, seemingly taking the mech with it... but they survive! Yay! You won!
Now you may be asking me... so what? It doesn't seem that compelling; what seperates this from other Christian video games? Practical application. The ability to learn verses and apply them to real-life scenarios and situations. That is what seperates "Captain Bible" from the rest of the rabble. You aren't simply playing some mindless Bible-based reskin of a popular franchise; you are actually learning the bible and having fun doing it.
Comment at will; that's all for now.
Subject: Kima's Retrospective Reviews - Captain Bible in Dome of Darkness 
Sat Aug 16, 2008 5:44 pm
