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| The Entertainment Review |
| Genre: Action Developer: Beenox Publisher: Activision |
It has come to be known that licensed video games are supposed to be terrible, and aren’t supposed to be much fun, but licensed
minutes of putting the game in. Every once in a while player will come across a game where the basic movie concepts hold together
with decent game design and a good game is born. “Bee Movie Game” is one good example of a good licensed video game.
It isn’t so much that the developer hit everything needed for the perfect package, but it is that they throw so many things into the game,
something good was bound to stick to the game. The problem is that most of the elements of the game that seemed to stick take up a
majority of the game play. The parts that didn’t take, including most of the side jobs and old school video games that are able to be
unlocked fall a little short of fun.
Even when players are running around in the game’s main hub area of New Hive City ends up feeling awfully boring after a while.
Players are able to borrow any of the cars that are zooming around the city, as long as it isn’t being driven, or they can catch a ride from
anyone else driving a car, riding in the passenger seat, this isn’t “Grand Theft Auto” after all. Throughout the game there are some
hidden collectables to find in both the main city area and Honex, the honey production plant that supplies all of the game’s jobs and
arcade game. The scope of the city isn’t nearly big enough to wow any players and it only seems to shrink the more familiar players get
with it.
Luckily for players, the very second that players leave the hive, the boring and repetitious jobs disappear and are replaced by a large
scale set of exploration levels and a few arcade style quick button press events. The quick button press serves mostly as a bridge
between normal levels and the rainfall that suddenly begins to fall in most of the outdoor sections. The players are mostly given the
task of collecting pollen from healthy flowers and injecting it into dying flowers or shooting down enemy wasps, dragonflies and more
with some free shooting sections.
There is very little interaction with the environments, usually consisting of spots to snap photos, buttons to press or things to knock over
and turn on and off, but for the most part players will spend their time searching for flowers to pollinate or finding hidden honey snacks.
This is great from anyone who needs to find all the hidden objects in the game in order to feel that they have officially beat the game. To
make things easier to find the hidden honey snacks and highlight safe spots or dying flowers, players can turn on Bee Vision, which
puts the world into a purple hue and the things that glow pink are the important things that players should pay attention to in the game.
It is a very nice feature, especially for those perfectionist types that were mentioned before and offers enough hand holding that it doesn’
t seem like it is stringing players along.
The rain soaked dashes from one safe spot to another and the more leisurely pieces of free exploration and pollination are very fun with
both the complexity and creativity of the levels increasing through the game. Since the alternatives are a bunch of arcade games that
take a bite out of the old school classics like Frogger, Space Invaders and Crazy Taxi, some boring delivery missions and a handful of
press the matching button mini games, the game is definitely lucky that the core of the game is very solid. The worst part of the game
are the racing matches that players will quickly realize were probably added at the last minute to fill some space.
Players will possibly have an issue with the fact that the game assumes everyone playing the game are familiar with the movie. It is
cool that the levels in the game mirror parts from the movie, but using the game as a flashback to the major events in the movie
storyline, occasionally mentioning characters as if the player should know who they are and mentioning a few events that weren’t even
in the game.
The graphics of the game have great, from the water, especially the nice refraction when the rain drops slow down a bit, but there are a
few odd shadows that occur when grass in introduced into the game. The levels are good, and they benefit from a nice frame rate and
some smooth graphics in New Hive City, not to mention the great density in the background objects, wandering bees in the city and the
vehicular traffic.
It should be noted that the developer does a great job with lip synching during cut scenes and the real time action. The animation as a
whole is good and does look a lot like a movie, which is important because for the most part all of the voice actors sound like their big
screen counterpart. The music is not very impressive with a marching sound and tons of repetition, but it isn’t bad, just boring.
For all of the repetitive mini game jobs and the slightly weak overall presentation of the game, “Bee Move Game” holds up fairly well. It
is definitely better than most other licensed games that are available at this time. Most of the player’s time will come down to whether
or not they want to spend the time to find all the hidden objects in the game through level exploration and how much they enjoy flying
around giant sized everyday locations.
minutes of putting the game in. Every once in a while player will come across a game where the basic movie concepts hold together
with decent game design and a good game is born. “Bee Movie Game” is one good example of a good licensed video game.
It isn’t so much that the developer hit everything needed for the perfect package, but it is that they throw so many things into the game,
something good was bound to stick to the game. The problem is that most of the elements of the game that seemed to stick take up a
majority of the game play. The parts that didn’t take, including most of the side jobs and old school video games that are able to be
unlocked fall a little short of fun.
Even when players are running around in the game’s main hub area of New Hive City ends up feeling awfully boring after a while.
Players are able to borrow any of the cars that are zooming around the city, as long as it isn’t being driven, or they can catch a ride from
anyone else driving a car, riding in the passenger seat, this isn’t “Grand Theft Auto” after all. Throughout the game there are some
hidden collectables to find in both the main city area and Honex, the honey production plant that supplies all of the game’s jobs and
arcade game. The scope of the city isn’t nearly big enough to wow any players and it only seems to shrink the more familiar players get
with it.
Luckily for players, the very second that players leave the hive, the boring and repetitious jobs disappear and are replaced by a large
scale set of exploration levels and a few arcade style quick button press events. The quick button press serves mostly as a bridge
between normal levels and the rainfall that suddenly begins to fall in most of the outdoor sections. The players are mostly given the
task of collecting pollen from healthy flowers and injecting it into dying flowers or shooting down enemy wasps, dragonflies and more
with some free shooting sections.
There is very little interaction with the environments, usually consisting of spots to snap photos, buttons to press or things to knock over
and turn on and off, but for the most part players will spend their time searching for flowers to pollinate or finding hidden honey snacks.
This is great from anyone who needs to find all the hidden objects in the game in order to feel that they have officially beat the game. To
make things easier to find the hidden honey snacks and highlight safe spots or dying flowers, players can turn on Bee Vision, which
puts the world into a purple hue and the things that glow pink are the important things that players should pay attention to in the game.
It is a very nice feature, especially for those perfectionist types that were mentioned before and offers enough hand holding that it doesn’
t seem like it is stringing players along.
The rain soaked dashes from one safe spot to another and the more leisurely pieces of free exploration and pollination are very fun with
both the complexity and creativity of the levels increasing through the game. Since the alternatives are a bunch of arcade games that
take a bite out of the old school classics like Frogger, Space Invaders and Crazy Taxi, some boring delivery missions and a handful of
press the matching button mini games, the game is definitely lucky that the core of the game is very solid. The worst part of the game
are the racing matches that players will quickly realize were probably added at the last minute to fill some space.
Players will possibly have an issue with the fact that the game assumes everyone playing the game are familiar with the movie. It is
cool that the levels in the game mirror parts from the movie, but using the game as a flashback to the major events in the movie
storyline, occasionally mentioning characters as if the player should know who they are and mentioning a few events that weren’t even
in the game.
The graphics of the game have great, from the water, especially the nice refraction when the rain drops slow down a bit, but there are a
few odd shadows that occur when grass in introduced into the game. The levels are good, and they benefit from a nice frame rate and
some smooth graphics in New Hive City, not to mention the great density in the background objects, wandering bees in the city and the
vehicular traffic.
It should be noted that the developer does a great job with lip synching during cut scenes and the real time action. The animation as a
whole is good and does look a lot like a movie, which is important because for the most part all of the voice actors sound like their big
screen counterpart. The music is not very impressive with a marching sound and tons of repetition, but it isn’t bad, just boring.
For all of the repetitive mini game jobs and the slightly weak overall presentation of the game, “Bee Move Game” holds up fairly well. It
is definitely better than most other licensed games that are available at this time. Most of the player’s time will come down to whether
or not they want to spend the time to find all the hidden objects in the game through level exploration and how much they enjoy flying
around giant sized everyday locations.
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