Posted Wed Dec 24, 2003 9:38 AM
I've the NES Biblical Trilogy of Bible Adventures, King of Kings, and Spiritual Warfare. They're quite a novelty to for me, though. I remember a really religious family that lived across the street from me, in my youth, and I borrowed their Bible Adventures cartridge once, because I was sure it would suck and wanted to see how badly.
I was actually surprised by it, as it was pretty decent. Searching for animals for Noah's Ark was simplistic in design, but well-executed. Gathering sheep as David (which was built on the basic gameplay of Noah's Ark) and finally confronting Golliath was novel, if a little too much like Noah's Ark. The moment that really shined for me was the Baby Moses game where you had to carry Moses through the streets of Egypt.... and you could throw him around. I must have tossed Moses into the river twenty times during the first game of this I played.
Spiritual Warfare is a pretty crackheaded game. You run around in a sort of Legend of Zelda-clone sort of game, throwing the Fruits of Virtue (or Wisdom or something...the important thing is they are actually FRUITS.... apples, pears, etc) at sinners, which causes them to nearly burst with joy and fall to their knees in prayer. Sometimes a demon is exorcised from them or something. You use vials of the Wrath of God (...) as Bombs to clear obstacles and blow up enemies. All in all it plays well (though I can't subject myself to too much of it at a time), is full of good Christian stuff (like quizzes on the behaviors of a good Christian and biblical events), and is strong in the Dork Side of the Force; the game is utterly crackheaded.
I haven't put in King of Kings yet.
As for collecting these, they're not in particular demand. As far as unlicensed games go, they're probably the rarest of the unlicensed, but they do not fetch a particularly grand dollar in collecting (though this could be a good deal different if the games have their manuals, boxes, or are unopened). They can be found with relative ease on eBay and make rare appearances in stores like GameStop/GameSpot, Funcoland and the like ...but you might pay more for the cartridges there. I think I was able to pick up Bible Adventures for a few bucks on eBay, which was actually comparable to the $6.99 GameStop wanted for it when I got the Shipping Costs, but I was able to get a slightly better deal in that I bought all three at once from the same seller and was able to save on shipping.
One day, though, they might appreciate in value (I'd actually anticipate it, given their rarity and sheer oddity), but not by a whole lot.