Bee Movie Game – PS2 – Review

In the video-game world, there are a
few things safe to assume. There’s no doubt about the first thing – there’ll
always be a yearly release of Madden (even with naysayers who complain about
roster updates). Secondly, Japanese gamers will always have a unique taste in
video games that not all Americans will understand. The third thing, and the one
that applies to the Bee Movie Game, is that licensed games tend to
straddle the fine line of mediocrity. The majority of licensed video games that
fall into this category are the games aimed at children – exactly the same
demographics for the Bee Movie Game.

Being based around Jerry Seinfeld’s
CG-animated comedy isn’t a bad route for a video game due to Seinfeld’s cult
status as a comedian. Playing as Barry B. Benson (voiced by Seinfeld himself),
players end up leaving the hive due to Barry’s boredom and venture outdoors to
find the best pollen in the surrounding area. As expected, Barry ends up
separating from his friends and is left to traverse the world on his own. So
fault number one: having a generic storyline isn’t the best outline for a
children’s film trying to separate itself from Pixar films and Shrek.

 

There’s a lot that drags this title
down to being average, but there are a few gameplay tidbits that, at least, make
it somewhat worthy of a gamer’s playing time. Let’s start with a few of the
basic gameplay features: slowing down time, timed-button pressing, mini-games,
and collecting hidden items. While the mixture of elements is nice, the way they
are broken down hurts the overall cohesive narrative a story should have.
Breaking away from the story, the mini-games offer an Ok departure to waste time
with, but in the end it comes off as squandering useful time that a gamer could
spend with other titles this holiday.

The portion of the game that I
enjoyed the most included moments where Barry had to use his ability to slow
down time and dodge particular objects such as raindrops and animals. Sure,
Max Payne
and The Matrix were the ones that started this whole
“bullet-time” craze that developers love to use, and sure it may be redundant
and unoriginal in today’s landscape of video games, but the Bee Movie Game
implements it nicely enough that it doesn’t feel over-the-top.

 

Where the game goes wrong is the
timed-button pressing. Copying what God of War made popular, this
technique in video games is becoming tiring to run across. I haven’t encountered
a system that does it better than God of War and the Bee Movie Game
isn’t the game to improve timed-button pressing throughout the industry.  

On top of that, BMG includes
a lot of mini-games that grasp a hold of players in their downtime and stall the
progression of the storyline. The mini-games are similar to games of yesteryear
with having gamers play taxi driver similar to Crazi Taxi, a Frogger
clone where players must dodge objects, and a few others thrown in for good
measure. While gamers may enjoy simple diversions, BMG focuses heavily on
them and it took up too much of my time to enjoy the storyline thoroughly.

 

As for the scope of the levels, they
aren’t as massive as I originally thought they would be. I had imagined a bee
hive to be much busier than Beenox, the developer of BMG, provided. New
Hive City, where Barry lives, is the place where he’ll usually accept and begin
his missions, but compared to the film, the hive isn’t as lively as I expected.
That isn’t to say that Beenox didn’t stay close to the source material because
the overall experience did feel like I was playing the movie. The jokes are well
presented and had me chuckling; and for another attribute, the characters are
bright and energetic due to the film actors representing their characters in the
game.

The last thing that needs mentioning
is the poor frame rate – it’s unacceptable! It deterred my enjoyment of
completing BMG and often screwed up dodging rain drops. As for the rest
of the graphics, it’s generic all the way down to the core. The textures are
poor and the game doesn’t inspire to be anything more than a licensed video
game.


Review Scoring Details for The Bee Movie Game

Gameplay: 6.0
Players must complete mini-games to advance through the campaign, not the
most appealing option for players who enjoy thorough single-player games. The
game lasts around 6-8 hours depending on how fast players advance through the
mini-games.

Graphics: 5.9
The frame rates were far too inconsistent to receive a pleasurable
experience out of the Bee Movie Game.

Sound: 7.5
The music in the game is dull and tepid. Though, I will add that the
lip-synching is solid.

Difficulty: Easy
Aimed at younger audiences, I see no trouble for children picking this up
and playing with ease.

Concept: 6.5
With the attempts to throw in a lot of diversity, the developers at least
tried to pave the way to several different avenues of entertainment.

Multiplayer: 6.2
The multiplayer component is basic with kart-style racing

Overall: 6.1
I found the Bee Movie Game to be a title that tried hard to break a
lot of stereotypes for licensed video games. From timed-button pressing to
dodging raindrops, the developers implemented a lot of depth though it wasn’t
properly executed.