Bee Movie Game

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.

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.