Conspiracy, secrets and murder in lighthouse’s latest game
After the previous lighthouse entertainment game I reviewed (Overclocked) I was quite looking forward to playing Belief & Betrayal. It’s quite a rare thing now to find a good point and click game, especially one which makes you think deeply. If, like me, this is what you are looking for, belief and betrayal won’t disappoint.
B&B is extremely reminiscent of The Da Vinci Code or Broken Sword, in that it is based around a story dating back to the crusades and involving government and church conspiracy.
Puzzles range from simple to almost unsolvable
Jonathon Danter (the game’s protagonist) is rushed from his home in America to Scotland yard by the police, after the apparent murder of his uncle. Jonathon however was led to believe that his uncle died 10 years earlier, and is dragged into investigating a Vatican conspiracy dating back to the time of Christ.
The interface is fairly simple, using a simple right click or left click for alternative action system, with the added ability to hold the space bar to reveal all items that the player can interact with. This makes the game much easier to play, as it removes the ‘pixel hunting’ element which most point and click adventure games are known for.
Puzzles range from simple to almost unsolvable and you will often find yourself screaming the most obvious of actions at your monitor because the character will not do them. 
Often this is rectified by something as unconventional as combining information from your notebook with a different character or item. The notebook information system is a good idea in principal, but it does not work so well in practice.
The game also suffers with a few glitches and bugs that can hinder game play. Whilst playing the game it crashed several times, meaning I had to restart my PC and revert to the last save. Unfortunately the game doesn’t auto save either, so you will have to consciously save your game as frequently as possible, and especially when entering new areas.
Another problem I found with B&B was that the character development was practically non existent. Near the beginning of the game, Jonathon meets a mysterious woman who claimed to know his uncle. This is about as much information as we are ever given about this character, and the other characters are generally just as bad. Also, like Overclocked, the voice acting for some characters seems rather unenthusiastic and flat.
Fortunately, unlike Overclocked, belief and betrayal takes place in a wide variety of locations, and will see the characters traveling across the globe in search of information and answers. The game also boasts 3 different characters who you will play throughout the game, but neglects to mention that one of them gets nailed to a wall after about 10 minutes of playing as them.
There isn’t really too much more I can say about this game without ruining the story is some way or another. But I will end by saying that Belief & Betrayal is a fun game with lots of puzzles of varying difficulty and a massively convoluted story which can be off-putting at times. I would recommend this game to fans of other similar games and also to anyone with an interest in The Da Vinci Code or other Dan Brown books.
The Bad: bugs and glitches can halt gameplay, very little character development.
Silver Y Award