Super 3D Noah's Ark (thing)

Name: Super 3D Noah's Ark
Format: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Developer: Wisdom Tree inc. and id Software
Publisher: Wisdom Tree inc.
Year: 1994

I wish this game didn't exist. I really do. It has to be, quite honestly, the worst thing ever.

Imagine if you had bought a Snes cartridge at a car boot sale for 50p, with no label. A bargain, you might think. When you get home to play it, it might be a Square RPG, well worth a hundred times that price. It might only be a game you've already got, something quite bad at that. But hey, you always need a backup of your games - and after all, there can't be a game in the world which isn't worth 50p - can there?

Well, I can inform you that if you paid 50p for this game, you would feel ripped off. There's so little that is good about this game, that I'm frightened of it. I may well destroy my rom of this after I finish the writeup - no one else should be made to suffer. But the world must know of the horror.

Super 3D Noah's Ark's biggest flaw is in it's subject matter. The game underneath, while still quite definitely abyssmal, would not have caused me to retch so violently if it had been given the usual "kill aliens/save girls" storyline. But the game is trying to make Christianity fun. I'm an atheist, but if this game is not a blasphemy in the eyes of the Lord then let me be struck down with the Monty Python foot of god.

Super 3D Noah's Ark is, essentially, a low budget remake of Wolfenstein 3D. It is one of the worst games ever ripping off one of the most influential games ever, besides maybe Doom. It features the same bland, non coloured ceiling and floor, relying on badly textured walls and doors for being able to see where the hell you are. You attack enemies, open doors, find the end of the level, etc. It's just like Wolfenstein. Or is it? The classic gave us everyone's favourite video game enemy, Nazi's. Everyone loves shooting Nazi's with big machine guns.

Meanwhile...

The game involves Noah running round his Ark (which suddenly has large and complex system of corridors and stone walls built in it - I guess this was edited out of The Bible) making all his animals go to sleep. Yes. Because killing is too evil for a Christian computer game (Plenty of it in the Bible, naturally.). So Noah uses his Slingshot, not to kill Goliath, but simply to fire food at the animals, who promptly go to sleep. The original Wolfenstein 3D engine did not have code in it for bullet trails/tracer fire. It's not essential, and after all many games today don't bother with it - it doesn't require a whole lot of disbelief suspending to understand that bullets fire too fast for the eye to see. Things fired out a slingshot though? The game provides no way of you knowing where your shot went, apart from, if you're lucky, a fresian cow lying asleep - no badly animated apple flying up the middle of the screen, nothing.

Noah opens doors, shoots - sorry, puts to sleep all his cute little animals (who are for some reason attacking and killing their caring, loving owner). There is only one weapon that I have found, the slingshot, but then again I have not even completed the first of the six (yes, a whole six) levels. There may be more - if anyone is brave enough to complete the level, and gets rewarded with a pump action shotgun for stage 2, then let me know, and my faith will be revived.

However, I cannot belittle the way that S3DNA has added one feature to the Wolfenstein code - a map of the level, accessed by pressing start. Like, wow. A two years late rip off port of one of the greatest games ever, implementing a useless, unpopular and flawed idea in an unoriginal, boring, unprofessional way, with a map! I'm sold.

The more observant of you will notice I'm not the biggest fan of this game. Get the rom at www.somethingawful.com/rompit, and experience it for yourself.

You too can experience:

• Noah's orgasmic groan when you press the action button while next to a wall!
• The true insanity of there being shedloads of dogs and cows on the ark, when The Bible states only two of each species got on - boy do those critters breed fast!
• Sheer terror - as you realise there is no button which lets you step on the windpipes of sleeping enemy cows/dogs!
• Happiness - This game will make you truly glad to be alive - when you set fire to your Snes in anger!
• Joy - Watch as the cartridge slowly melts away - total gaming satisfaction!

yerricde says "Developer line should read "Developer: Wisdom Tree and id Software" because S3DNA was based on a Wolf3d engine that id licensed to WT in retaliation for the censorship in Wolfenstein 3d for Super NES."