Game Description

Straight from the silver screen to your Nintendo Game Boy Color comes A Bug's Life, the video game version of the animated film from Disney and Pixar. As the beleaguered ant Flik, your mission is to survive all nine levels of gameplay and save your colony from the evil grasshopper Hopper and his gang. This is a 2D side-view platform game.

You start with six lives, each of which contains three points of health. You lose health every time you're hit by an enemy and gain some back every time you pick up food such as berries and leaves. The berries also make great ammunition.

Following the basic plot of the film, you begin level one by helping Flik create his harvesting machine. That is followed by a bonus round where you race against time to harvest crops. From there you head off to the city to recruit help in the ants' struggle against the grasshoppers, return to Ant Island with the circus bugs and rescue Princess Dot from the sparrow, build and release a fake sparrow, and then lure Hopper to the real bird.

Along the way you score points for successfully completing various actions and earn a password at the end of each level so that you can start your next session where you left off. Finally, you can use the Super Game Boy to play A Bug's Life on the Super NES. ~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide

Roots & Influences

This game is based on the movie A Bug's Life. Its 2D platform style of play has its roots in the king of 2D platform games, Super Mario Brothers on the original NES. ~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide

Review: Enjoyment

The game falls down here due to poor design. Users will become quickly frustrated with the suspect control and needlessly difficult levels. ~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide

Production Credits

TIERTEX

Producer: Donald Campbell

Production Assistant: Gary Marshall

Graphics: Bryan King

Programming: Donald Campbell

Music: Mark Ortiz

Game Design: Donald Campbell, Gary Marshall, Bryan King

THQ

Vice-President of Development: Steve Ryno

Producer: Greg Gibson

Director of QA: Donn Nauent

Testing: Jun Caliva, Jason Pislaan, Jason Lewis, Matt Azali, Jason Deheras, Edward Ramiro, Lee Liu, Carlos Ramirez, Jason Predmore, James Ritchie, Victor Byron, Jason Shelnut

DISNEY

Senior Producer: Dan Winters

Assistant Producer: Renee Johnson ~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide

Review: Overall

Disney/Pixar: A Bug's Life is a game that unfortunately suffers from mediocre gameplay despite the care that was obviously put into its other elements.

First, the good: The graphics are nice and detailed despite the Game Boy Color's tiny screen. The characters also look pretty much the way they do in the movie, although someone decided to make Flik purple instead of blue (yes, neither color is appropriate for an ant, but we won't worry about that). The levels closely follow the film's plot, which was refreshing; so many video games created from movies deviate wildly from the storyline for whatever reason.

Now, the bad: Part of the first level is next to impossible to traverse, and not because there is a really tough enemy guarding it. You'll eventually come to a twig lying on the ground near a plant with a few evenly spaced leaves running up along it and a large mushroom. The obvious path is to jump on the twig, continue onto the lowest leaf of the plant, and then onto the mushroom, right? Wrong.

For some strange reason I kept hitting the leaf right above the mushroom and couldn't land on it, even though I was close (usually in platform games like this the program will give you the benefit of the doubt and put you where you need to be, even if you weren't quite there). I kept trying this over and over again to no avail.

Unfortunately, I couldn't jump onto that leaf above the mushroom; it was too far from the bottom leaf, and there were no leaves in between. While it's possible to press the "B" button and run fast in this game, it doesn't help you the way it does in a game like Super Mario Bros.. You don't jump any higher if you run first, and, since that's the same button you use to throw berries at the bad guys, you often find yourself throwing away precious ammunition if you don't let go of the button fast enough after running.

There were also a few dandelions nearby, which I hoped maybe I could grab and sail into the air like Flik did in the film, but they're just part of the scenery. I also hoped I could simply climb the plant, since the last time I checked, ants are able to climb just about anything. That didn't work either. So I wound up trying to run fast and then jump, which only wasted my berries and got me nowhere.

I soon discovered that even collecting those berries could be a trying experience. Early in the first level they fall from a bush overhead and bounce toward you. If they're too high in the air, though, they cause damage when they hit you, so you have to make sure they're almost done bouncing when you grab them. If you wait too long, they'll disappear. Any game that makes collecting ammo this tricky can become extremely frustrating within minutes. Add in a section that is next to impossible to get past for no apparent reason, and you have a title that just isn't worth the purchase price. ~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide

Review: Graphics

The graphics are one of the few bright points of the game. ~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide

Review: Sound

Passable sound, but the music is nondescript. ~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide

Review: Replay Value

The replay value is hampered by the lack of enjoyment! ~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide

Review: Documentation

The manual does a solid job of explaining everything. ~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide

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