
Most modern commercially released full-priced titles are all anodyne and glossy - they will have little truck with anything that isn't polished, focus-tested, and designed to appeal to as broad an audience as possible.
It wasn't always thus. Back in the 8-bit era, when games were cheaper to produce, all manner of oddness slipped through the crannies. Having spent the last week strapped to an NES emulator, we can testify to this. Here we present ten of our favourite NES oddities.
Landing on certain squares unlocks a food-themed mini game (depending on which land you're in, these games might be potato-themed, barbecue-themed, or pizza themed). What really jars, though, is that certain squares confront you with Bible-based true or false questions.. Rather than include the questions in the body of the game, players had to refer to an accompanying booklet (as you might assume, this rendered our playing of it initially bewildering).
The back cover blurb explains it best: "Bible Buffet combines the best features of a board game with the fast action of a video arcade. Spin the spinner to see where you'll land. Visit exciting places like Pizza Land, Bread Land, and Fruit Land. Win the game by gathering the most food for the food bank, finishing the map first, or answering the most Bible questions correctly. Every trip through Bible Buffet is a unique adventure, giving the whole family hours of food frolicking fun!".
Unfortunately, you didn't get to control the Lovely Lamb. Instead, the levels were themed around the Three Magi, the camel who ferried Joseph, Mary and Jesus to Bethlehem, and - eventually - Joseph himself, trying to track down his non-biological son in a temple.
Weirdly, developer Tokuma Shoten had official permission from the Soviet embassy to use the likeness of the then president of the Soviet Union. We don't know if they were trying to top the Soviet overtones in Tetris, but... they certainly succeeded, even affectionately shortening Gorbachev's name into the bargain. If this was made now it'd be called Pu-Pu's Ukrainian Gas Pipeline Switch-Off Plan.
Ah... things we so much nicer back then, weren't they?