If I had to pick the weirdest Wisdom Tree game, it'd probably have to be this one. It was made in 1995, so it's probably the rarest; plus, nothing can beat it for overall quirkiness without going into pirate land. The game is actually divided into 3 discrete sections - Sunday Funday, Fish Fall, and The Ride, which I'll explain later.

Here's Sunday Funday. Doesn't this title screen seem strangely familiar? That's right - this game is simply Menace Beach with a few changed graphics. Instead of the violent object of trying to save your chained-up girlfriend, here the object simply is to get to Sunday school on time (since it's Sunday Funday! Get it? Wooo). The girl herself is replaced by your Sunday School teacher, an old lady who encourages you to continue on as you go through the levels. Most of the enemies are changed too - instead of ninjas and sumo wrestlers you fight regular dudes in T-shirts and jeans, and big fat guys in T-shirts and jeans.

Fish Fall isn't much better. You control a disembodied hand at the bottom of the screen, and the object is to catch a required number of fish falling from the top of the screen before time runs out. In between stages, bonuses are counted and a Biblical verse is displayed. The graphics are pretty flat and it looks like this was coded in a rush just to round out the cart, essentially.

The Ride is the most interesting part of the cart. If you've ever wanted to use your NES as a karaoke player, you've got the chance now, because all this does is show the lyrics of and play a off-kilter rendition of "The Ride" from possibly famed Christian rock group 4Him. The NES rendition of the tune does nothing to make me a huge fan of the group, and all it does is go through a few screenfuls of lyrics, then ask if you want to play the tune again, which means it doesn't have a lot of lasting play value (unless you like embarrassing anyone nearby as you sing, or try to sing if you're listening to the tune for the first time).

In summary, I'm really not sure why they bothered with the 2 extra "things" tacked onto the Menace Beach remix. MB isn't -that- bad a game (at least, it's playable) but FishFall and the karaoke section probably were coded by some bored dude during a lull (and I bet there are a lot of lulls when you're working at Wisdom Tree).

Back to the odd page.