Buck Bumble

The year is 2010. In rural England everything seems to be fine -- among the humans, that is. In the insect world, things are a bit different. Years ago a poisonous chemical spill contaminated the insects, causing them to evolve into very dangerous creatures over time. They developed weaponry and are planning to take over the garden and beyond. They are known as The Herd. The rest of the insect world is desperate to stop The Herd before it's too late, but is powerless to do so in its current state. They realize the only possible way to stop The Herd is to initiate Project BUCK -- a genetically enhanced bee that would be strong enough to overpower and finish the enemy once and for all. Buck Bumbleis solid, low-flying action that takes you from mission to mission accomplishing against-the-odds tasks in hopes of making the insect world safe once again!

Gameplay

Before starting a real game, it is very beneficial to play the Training mission. The training mission shows you how to restore your life, open Herd doors, teleport, pick up and use other weapons amongst other things. It is also good to play until you get the hang of flying Buck -- which isn't hard at all.

This game plays much like a combat flight simulator except you have MUCH better control over yourself that you would in any type of aircraft. Controlling Buck is quick and easy enough to learn -- Up, Down, Left, Right, Forward, Brake/Hover, and Fire is about it. In addition, Buck can land and walk around and flip or double flip (which turns him 180 degrees).

Whatever you do, don't try to land on water or you'll drown. You also can pick up and use other weapons that have different strengths and switch between them at any given time. Other than the first weapon you start with, all weapons have limited ammunition. The enemies are not excessively difficult to destroy by themselves, but when you get a horde of The Herd, watch out. Many different types of creatures make up The Herd and each has their own weapon and attributes to make your life sting. Amongst these enemies are Dragonflies that fire pulse lasers at you, Giz Beetles and Ants which fire acid at you from the ground and Killapillas (giant caterpillar-type insects) pop out of the water and fire deadly volleys from their twin mounted plasma cannons. In addition, there are turrets mounted on walls and out in the open to help try and bring you down.

The trick to staying alive is to keep moving and pick up droplets from flowers (which restore your life meter). There are many times in the game when simply not destroying the enemy troops, but rather flying to and taking care of your objective is preferable. In fact, if you take care of your objective before the bonus point timer runs out, you'll get a higher bonus. Did you say bonus points? Yes, there are a few games left where you can actually score points and this is one. Points are actually pretty important to score as you get an extra life for each 10,000 points you score -- and believe me, you will need those extra lives for later levels. Points are also scored by eliminating enemy insects and by picking up point icons floating about in various places.

This game supports the Rumble Pak so when you bump into something, including shots or acid fired at you, you'll feel it. There are a variety of missions themselves from scouting for enemies to seek and destroying radar dishes and outposts, to defending your home base from The Herd. Fortunately for you, this game also supports the Controller Pak so you can save your games between levels. If you are using both the Rumble Pak and Controller Pak, the game will prompt you to swap them when appropriate.

Graphics

The graphics are colorful and nice to look at. Since you are a bee in this game, you'll notice everything is a lot bigger than what you, as a human, would consider normal. There are various objects and obstacles that get in your way: mushrooms, plants, shovels, benches, and walls. Since the whole war is not fought in the garden, you'll also get to see the beautiful grime and sludge on the sewer and pipe walls as well as the chemical pollution flowing along. And since you are a bee of action, you will get to see acid splattering on the walls, explosions of tank-like insects and outposts, and the soft glow of both the sphere around items waiting to be grabbed and the Herd gates waiting to be opened.

Audio

Interesting and quite upbeat. The music in this game is a combination of techno, rap, and reggae. It isn't that loud by default (during the game anyway) so you can actually concentrate on the mission at hand. I was pleased with the sound effects. When you shoot down a flying enemy, it sounds like a plane going down rather than some squeal-like sound you might expect. Also the background sounds in the garden, such as birds chirping, are a great addition.

Documentation

There isn't much to say on this one. It's a manual. It explains and shows you generally how to play the game. Ten pages of real quick reading that you could pretty much figure out on your own just by playing the game. In fact, there are many things you will only learn by playing the tutorial in the game. Still, what's there is well-written should you decide to read it.

Bottom Line

In a world where games are all starting to be as realistic to life as possible, it's nice to see that some real imagination still exists. Buck Bumble is like no other game I've ever played. Although the mission objectives may be like some other games, the premise, characters, environments, and gameplay are very original and fun. The controls are quick and easy to learn and although challenging, the game is not overly hard which is why it is my pleasure to give this game a score of 95.

BUCK BUMBLE STARTED LIFE as a research project undertaken by experienced gamesters Argonaut Software. Way back in the mists of time – well, winter of 1996 – Argonaut decided to investigate the capacities of the N64 console, which was at that time out in Japan and fast approaching a European release, with a view to possibly producing software for it.

Around March of last year, when the machine made its UK debut, the project seemed to be shaping up well enough to think about producing a game, and the concept of Buck Bumble was born.

Initially the team handling Buck Bumble consisted of only three people, an artist, a game designer and a lead coder. As the game grew, so did the team behind it, bringing the crew to its current level of three coders, three artists, two game designers and a producer.

The first question must be what on earth made Argonaut decide to base their game around the adventures of a small yellow and black cyborg bumblebee? Producer Nick Clarke explains the thinking behind it:

“The team wanted to create a 3-D shoot-’em-up with a difference and not one that had the usual blasting suspects. Spaceships and conventional war craft have been around since the dawn of the genre. We wanted something new, a shoot-’em-up with a character. In the early stages where the programmers were playing with flight dynamics the idea of the bumblebee got started and we decided to put the game at a micro level giving Buck the unique but very familiar environment in which to blast his opponents.”

I’ll Bee There For You

The result of this thinking is a game style which on the surface looks an awful lot like Lylat Wars. This is hardly surprising, considering that Argonaut produced the very first Starfox game on the old Super NES. Gameplay-wise though, the two games couldn’t be more different. Whereas Lylat Wars offers a fairly linear style of gameplay, restricting the player’s movement to within rather limited boundaries and thus ensuring that the action has to move along a specified path, Buck Bumble provides a 3-D environment and then more or less allows the player to get on with it.

The one-player mode in Buck Bumble is actually a lot more reminiscent of the multiplayer battle mode in Lylat Wars, in that the action takes place within a carefully sized arena and the player has total freedom of movement within that area. Argonaut claim that the play areas have been carefully sized so that the sheer freedom of the game won’t end up confusing and disorienting the player, thus taking all the fun out of the game (if you’ve ever played Descent then you’ll know what we’re talking about). Instead, the levels have been designed with distinctive landscape features that the player will be able to recognise and thus become familiar with the gaming environment, leaving them suitably prepared to accomplish the game’s mission objectives.

Bee Here Now

The use of an insect as the main character allows for a unique set of gaming landscapes. Producer Nick Clarke explained that the concept of using a main character so small opened up all sorts of possibilities. For inspiration, all the team had to do was to go into an ordinary garden and a world of potential features would present themselves.

This has resulted in a rather different gameplaying environment than most shoot-’em-up fans will probably be familiar with. If you’ve seen Honey I Shrunk The Kids, then you may have some idea of what to expect, and David Bellamy fans may remember a rather old nature series where, ‘through the magic of television’, the bearded bloke would shrink to a fraction of his normal size and wander around domestic gardens confronting all number of weird insectile and horticultural menaces.

The scenery in Buck Bumble is somewhat comparable to this. Okay, so the David Bellamy show didn’t often deal with rampaging alien insects sporting heavy weaponry, but you know what I mean. Because you’re looking through the eyes of a diminutive hero, everything in the garden is imposing. Flowers become massive house-sized constructions, insects range from small to as big as an articulated lorry... er, if the articulated lorry were shrunk really small and stood next to a bee.

Things as ordinary as a bench, or even a toilet (every good garden should have one) suddenly become huge obstacles that could conceal an alien grenade launcher or a squadron of angry wasp-like insects.

Let It Bee

Okay, so the game is about a bee, and he’s protecting the world from alien invaders. Though what could possibly have possessed Argonaut to come up with a name like Buck Bumble? Over to Nick Clarke:

“We wanted a name that was synonymous with an action hero, something punchy that instantly gave some pace to the game. We could hardly call him Trevor or Malcolm! [What are you trying to say Nick? – Roy] When we looked into names a little more we found that, in films especially, heroes have really short names so that was a start. Then we looked at the futuristic theme to the game and we immediately thought of Buck Rogers and the Buck thing just seemed to fit the character.”

So there you go. It’d be interesting to know how the star of the Buck Rogers TV series – Gil Gerard – would feel about having a small round bumblebee as his namesake!

At the moment, one of the most impressive aspects of Buck Bumble is the visuals. All the artwork for the insect-like aliens of the Evil Herd (the alien force that’s threatening the planet) and of course, Buck himself, was first drawn on paper before it went anywhere near a computer. The game textures were then created using the combined facilities of 3D Studio Max and Photoshop (that’s for the technically minded among you), and a lot of attention was given to the scaling of objects within the Buck Bumble worlds. This was essential in creating the feel of playing a tiny creature within a gigantic but nevertheless ordinary world. As everyone who owns an N64 knows, one of the most important aspects of N64 games can be the multiplayer mode. Buck Bumble will include a multiplayer facility, although at the moment it looks like being limited to only two players. Rather than a co-operative game, this will probably consist of various versus modes, including all-action aerial gun battles, various races and, rather uniquely, a kind of aerial football game.

Buck Bumble will include 22 missions plus additional hidden ones set over three zones, to culminate in a deadly confrontation with your ultimate enemy, the Queen of the Evil Herd. Throughout the course of the game, Buck will be able to master a variety of bolt-on weaponry, ranging from your run-of-the-mill energy weapons to some ridiculously huge cannons.

Start with Star Fox, add in some Duke Nukem, elements of Mario 64, throw in an all-insect cast, shake it up and out comes Buck Bumble, Ubi Soft's latest N64 offering. As cyborg bee Buck Bumble, your mission is to take out a horde of mutant insects bent on world domination. You control Buck through 20 free-flying mission-based levels--smarter and arm themselves with better weapons as you go along. Picture a free-roaming Star Fox, and you're halfway there. At its core, Buck Bumble plays like a classic-style shooter, but borrows elements that work well in 3D platform games, creating a mix of shooting action and mission-based objectives.

Levels include a Forest, Wasteland, Hive, Sewer, House and Graveyard, each becoming more and more unfamiliar to Buck with its own graphic style. Each level is sectioned into specific areas, making it easy to seek, destroy and explore an area completely before moving on to the next. Five Bosses await, with the biggest at the end--the mutated Queen. Additionally, there's a two player Battle Mode with five arenas and a pseudo Soccer-style game called Buzz Ball. Buck Bumble's graphics are a blend of surreal, yet realistic characters and environments. The camera moves nicely, so that the action is always in view. There are two camera angles to choose from during play--a third-person and piggyback view.

Buck has the ability to use almost a dozen weapons, including guns like a Plasma Pistol, Stinger, Frag Cannon, Cluster Bombs, the HGS 2000 and the all-powerful Fusion Cannon.

You'll find certain enemies have weaknesses to particular weapons. Immediately you'll notice the main Buck Bumble theme, sung by MC Cisco. It's very...strange at first.

The music throughout the game is composed of various instrumental techno-ish music/beats and synthesized sounds, with ambient buzzing/nature sounds in the background. Look for Buck to buzz into your favorite store this fall.

Buck Bumble has been a long time in production. What started life as a project at Argonaut Software to test the capabilities of the N64 has now evolved into a massive 3-D shoot-'em-up.

The premise behind the game is that the next great threat to the Earth wilt come not from space, but from somewhere far closer to home, quite literally from our own back gardens. A strange new mutant form of insect-life -created a by toxic spill from a long-abandoned chemical plant - is out to take over the planet, destroying anything that stands in its way.

While we humans are as yet unaware of the threat looming right under our very noses - or in this case, feet - the insect population is only too aware, and they've set out to put things right. Defying all evolutionary predictions, the insects have developed their own technology and created a superenhanced cyborg bee codenamed 'Buck' to go up against the forces of what has come to be known as the Evil Herd.

Which is where you come in, assuming control of the aforementioned feisty rotund cyborg. Before you can say "Bumble... Buck Bumble" you find yourself thrust into a warzone populated by all manner of weird and wonderful entities - all of whom want to kill you!

Deja Vu All Over Again?

The visual similarities between Buck Bumble and a certain fox-related game in the stars are immediately obvious. However, gameplay-wise the two titles are worlds apart.

To start with, the character of Buck is free roaming. He can fly in any direction he likes, and so the game is a lot less linear than the main Starfox mode. The game designers have made the most of this freedom to set up complex puzzles which Buck must solve to progress through the game.

Each level in Buck is mission-based, with a briefing at the start of each to outline the objectives and point out important features. Occasionally during the course of a mission, the briefing may be altered by your commanders back at HQ in reaction to developing events, at which time Buck just has to wing it!

Initially missions have fairly simple objectives such as 'fly to here and shoot this'. All too soon, however, they become more complicated as the playing areas get bigger and the enemies and enemy installations get more prolific andmuch meaner. You'll find yourself being ordered to assassinate a specific class of insect, only to then be ordered home because your base is under attack. Or you'll be sent to plant a nuclear device in heavily defended enemy territory, a task made more difficult by the problem that your bomb explodes if hit by a stray shot or bumped against anything. One mission involves tracking down and capturing baby members of the Evil Herd for research, and the little critters are so cute you almost feel bad for zapping them!

One Bad Mutha...

Initial previews of Buck promised a fast-paced, challenging shoot-'em-up that would really force players to think, and that's exactly what's been delivered. The intelligence of the enemy insects increases as you progress through the game, enhancing the overall trickiness of the missions

The actual mission structure in Buck is well developed, with a fairly steep learning curve. This should please those people who are sick of buying an N64 game and finishing it by the end of the day. That shouldn't be the case here, though the fact that you can save the game at the end of every level does make things a bit easier.

Buck is rather strange in this respect, as initially you get three lives, and yet when you die, the mission resets and you must do the whole level from the start. This means that there is no advantage to, say, being on level four with one life against being on level four with seven lives. If you die, either way you must restart the level from scratch, so having lives just doesn't help. If extra lives could let you carry on a partially finished mission from where you died, then that would've made more sense.

A Problem Of Clarity

While we're on niggles, it'd be best to get the most important one out of the way - the fogging. If you've played Turok then you should know what to expect. Everything a certain distance from Buck is obscured by blue fog. This is particularly bad on levels that are very open, which fortunately isn't most of them. Levels that are more enclosed (like the sewers for example) hardly suffer at all. The fogging is a shame, because visually it can make it difficult at times to work out where everything is - annoying when you're trying to find something in the middle of a battle!

That said though, the fogging is the only thing which can really be faulted in Buck. The character control is excellent, with Buck flying, twisting and looping expertly in response to each touch on the analogue stick. The most useful move Buck has is the hover, which allows you to halt in mid-air and is essential if you're trying to hammer small or fast-moving targets as it makes it far easier to orient your sights.

The enemies in Buck Bumble are very varied, with good Al and some nasty weaponry, particularly on the later levels. Fortunately Buck himself packs some pretty awesome hardware -collected during each mission - and some of the weapons have to be seen to be believed!

The mission structures have obviously been well planned and a lot of time has been spent on the plots for each level, making you feel that you really are a grunt in an insect army striving to save the world from the forces of evil.

Buzz Ball Action!

The lack of a four-plgyer Battle mode is a little disappointing, and the basic two-player mode is uninspiring, simply because the bees move so fast that it's difficult to really slug it out with each other. However, the excellent alternative Battle mode, Buzz Ball, more than makes up for this, and should keep footie fans and non-footie fans alike going for quite a while. Did the inspiration for Buck perhaps have anything to do with the fact that the game was being finished off during the World Cup?

One final thing to mention is the music. Rather than the usual cutesy Mono-esque tunes, Buck sports a funky, speed garage soundtrack which seems strange at first but soon grows on you.

So, once again the N64 comes up with a winner! Yet another top N64 game must be a bit of a shock to all long-term owners out there, but if future N64 games are near anything like the standard of Buck Bumble, then the future of N64 gaming looks very bright indeed!

Mission-based shooter with a cyborg bee as hero. Plenty to do and nice characters, but not as frantic as it could have been.

First-person bee shoot-'em-up. Nice idea but dogged by ropey visuals.

Dodgy graphics and unconvincing controls, but not the worst shoot-'em-up we've ever played. Try before you buy.

On the D-pad push Left. Right. Up and Down and hold for two seconds. Then push Right. Right. Left and Left for infinite weapons.

Buck Bumble's bringing the beeswax to the Nintendo 64 in an action/adventure insect blastfest. Climb on the back of a cyborg bee and go to battle against evil alien mutant insec-toids who are enslaving the world's native insects. It's up to you to blow away buggy baddies through 22 levels, using weapons like plasma pistols, in order to reach the final showdown with the Queen of the Evil Herd! Listen for the buzz this fall--you may just find yourself bumbling into this bug battle.

The premise is a little absurd--a bumblebee shooter?--but Buck Bumble's exciting combination ,of StarFox'sairborne combat and ColdenEye's mission-based adventure will have N64 owners buzzing with delight.

Equipped with bumblebee armor, you're on a secret mission to infiltrate a lair of mutated bugs known as the Herd. BB's single-player game flies high with escape, seek-and-destroy, defense, and sabotage missions. Although the multiplayer feature supports only two players, the standard deathmatch is nicely complemented by a soccer-style variation, Buck Ball, where you must bump a giant ball into your opponent's goal.

The Herd's lair is vast and deadly, replete with secret areas and traps galore. Although the environments are fog-heavy and youthful in style, the variety and detail in the villains and in BB's smashing sound effects draw you into the action immediately. Beware: This is a highly challenging game, and the lack of adjustable difficulty may frustrate younger gamers. It all adds up to longer gameplay, however. Despite its youngish looks, Buck Bumble is enduring, exciting entertainment that no N64 fan should miss.

Graphics

Granted, Buck Bumble is set in London, but even the Brits don't have as much fog as you see here. Once you get up close and personal, though, everything's just bloody good.

Control

If Buck could just back the heck up, his life would be a lot easier. Buck has a steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of the interface, he's easy to negotiate.

Sound

This game has style: cool music, blistering effects, pounding stereo--even a catchy rap. Check out the dive-bombing bees that crash with engine roars.

Fun Factor

Half adventure game, half shooter, Buck Bumble packs a serious sting. The single-player missions are intense, exciting, and action-packed, and the head-to-head mode offers interesting soccer matches and deathmatch variations.