Unfortunately, this implementation of point-and-click game mechanics sometimes requires an inordinate amount of extra mouse clicks, and some clumsily implemented inventory-combining challenges and an overabundance of expository dialogue slow things to a crawl just as the story starts getting good. These design flaws - along with some pedestrian puzzles and those aforementioned protagonist miscues - ultimately turn Belief & Betrayal into a serviceable but largely forgettable European church tour.
You'll love:
- Compelling story
- Mostly solid voice acting
- Clever twists
You'll hate:
- Perpetually irritating hero
- Too much expository dialogue
- Clumsy interface
GI.net: "On rare occasions, you can start a game and just know within the first 5 minutes how the game is going to play out. Belief & Betrayal is definitely one of those games, though it is not because it is just another unoriginal bland adventure game. The reason I know how the game is going to turn out is because I have pretty much already read the entire story (and watched the movie) in a book titled The Da Vinci Code.
Belief & Betrayal is an adventure game in the classic adventure style with a story revolving around a church conspiracy. I can appreciate a good conspiracy story, but when that story is basically a shortened version of a best-selling novel with some minor modification to the characters and their relationships, well, I just get turned off. At the start of the game, your uncle is murdered, and you are confronted by a good cop and a corrupt cop. You'll soon realize the situation and have to narrowly escape this bad cop who can swarm the city with other cops who are looking for you. Notice any similarities?"
Out of Eight writes: "Imagine a gray haired man with his back to the camera. His voice is flippant, shrill and condescending. He's Jonathan Danter, a journalist and something of a ladies man, at least according to his editor, who's worried he'll waste time "looking at girls in mini skirts and sexy tops." But there's no way any girl could tolerate the presence of this goofy-looking goose in shoes. He's undeniably irritating, the kind of guy you couldn't wait to get away from. And that's before he busts out his lovable little chestnut: "cats whiskers!" It's the catch-phrase that's sweeping the nation, or at least sweeping me off to the darkest tides of madness, as my grip on sanity was loosened every time I heard it. Before he can score his interview with Cardinal Gregorio, Jonathan Danter is summoned to Scotland Yard, to help investigate the murder of his uncle, who he was told had died ten years ago. "I guess I'd better go to London," Jonathan says. "Goodbye, cocktails with little umbrellas in them!" (I don't think his editor had much to worry about)."
The Good:
+Intriguing premise
+Worthy soundtrack
+Nicely directed cutscenes
The Not So Good:
-Detestable lead character
-Uninterruptible error messages
-Sporadic crashes
-Laughable puzzles
-Questionable translation
-Unfriendly interface
GameZine suppose you could damn Belief and Betrayal with faint praise – there's nothing inherently 'wrong' with it, with relatively solid backdrops, leisurely gameplay and reasonable sound (apart from the voices and dialogue, of course).
But there isn't anything special there either, nothing to make it stand out from the pack. GameZine couldn't really actively recommend this game to anyone other than adventure game completists, but if you did happen to play it, it would give you a better 'religious experience' than the Da Vinci Code game.
