A Review: A Bug's Life, N64 1998

The second review that I'll be adding is for the old N64 game A Bug's Life

An action-adventure game that follows the film's plot for the most part and seemed to do fairly well for itself. A game that I had no idea existed actually existed until I downloaded a ROM pack from a game preservation website in late 2020. It sat awaiting my attention until I decided on a playthrough in the later half of 2022. From what I have learned while researching this game, it seems to have been marketed more toward children and younger gamers. The plot is pretty much a direct copy of the film, with some added stages and changes made for the sake of gameplay. Completing levels even unlocked various clips from the film that served as a way to setup further play or to close out the end of a level. In 2010, this game was re-released on the Playstation Store for the PS3 and Playstation Portable, which met with fair success. There are some rumours around various game websites that suggest that there was a port for the Sega Saturn made, but I cannot find any truth to those claims. In 1999, this game won the PC Children's Entertainment Title of the Year Award at the 2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, beating six other nominees.

Personally, I had mixed feelings about this game. At times, I enjoyed the play and found it fairly fun and reasonably engaging. Yet at other times I came to find it horribly frustrating, dull, and repetitive. The boss battles are far too harsh for a younger audience, in my opinion. There was a constant issue with the controls being all or nothing, and I found that there were also problems maintaining a stable frame rate. This presented a big problem for me when I was playing through the climbing and parkour sections of the game, as one stutter or misstep sent me back to the bottom of the course to start over. All told, I do believe that this game was aimed at children, and while not the worst thing that I have ever played, it wasn't something that I found to be all that great.
 

Visually, I thought that this game was okay for an N64 title; it wasn't amazing but wasn't horrible either. The in-game items were clear, easy to see, and stood out from the backgrounds. The various objects looked like the things that they were supposed to, and I liked the texture usage for the larger items, like trees and plants. The characters looked pretty good and were as close as one could expect them to be to their film counterparts. Animations and models were smooth, and I never encountered any visual issues during my playthrough, aside from the frame rate problem I mentioned earlier. 

 

Overall, a simple little game that caters to the child/younger gamer market. I didn't mind it too much and found it fun enough to play through and complete.


5/10 – Okay!

Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ

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