Bug Too!

Developer: Realtime Associates
Publisher: Sega

You may find this hard this hard to believe, but 'Bug!' was a critical success back in 1995! Critics would praise the innovative gameplay and superb 3D graphics. It must've sold pretty well too because a sequel was out a year later.

This time the story makes a lot more sense in a cartoony sort of way, after the success of the first Bug movie, you and your friends are enlisted for seven new feature films all of which are shot on location with little regard for the actor's safety. I'm glad Bug Too! took a few seconds to explain the story a little better this time around, the first game was really needlessly confusing.

The game starts out well enough as it prompts you to pick one of three characters, Bug from the first title, a 1970's style disco character and a talking dog that sort of sounds like Scooby-Doo. Unfortunately, as it turns out they all play the same, none of them have any exclusive abilities, stats or moves.

You're then brought to the first series of levels which  parody horror movies, they're not done as well as Gex, but I did get a chuckle at some of the monsters, namely the ghosts who chain you, call you 'loser' and then release you. I have no idea why that costs you health points but I don't care either, it's funny and that's all I need. The first three levels are much more interesting than any of the worlds in the first game with actual background, walls and a generally more interesting art style.

Unfortunately once you finish the first world disappointment sets in quickly as the game quickly returns to the bland look and style from the first game. Even the movie parodies are completely forgotten! How can you have a space world parody with no references to Star Wars, Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey or really anything at all? It's just a generic level set in space! The desert levels could have parodied Indiana Jones or Lawrence of Arabia, but again, none of that actually happens, it's just a group of generic stages featuring none of the original enemies, walls or decorations from the first three levels.

None the issues from 'Bug!' were addressed either, levels become frustratingly difficult not just because of the enemies and death pits but also due to their sheer size and maze-like design, it also suffers from the same repetitive design

Graphically there are little to no differences from the first game once you beat the first world (yes I know I sound like a broken record here), meaning you'll soon return to the boring featureless corridors which seem to do a good job at getting you lost. The music isn't bad, though I noticed Bug re-uses a lot of the same one-liners from the first game and the recording equipment sounds noticeably different than the newly added ones.

It almost feels like the developers wanted to create a game that parodies pop-culture but ran out of time, so you get a really fun first world followed by six boring, generic worlds that look like they were ripped from Bug! If you enjoyed the first game you might as well view Bug Too as a mission-pack, however, if it's a full-fledged sequel you're after, prepare for disappointment.

Pros:

- First few levels are fun and quirky
- Fun gameplay in short bursts
- Character models look pretty good and are nicely animated for the time

Cons:

- It's easy to get lost and the high difficulty can be frustrating
- Gameplay becomes somewhat repetitive after a while
- Visually the maps start out interesting but quickly become dull and boring

Final Grade: C+

The game may not be much of improvement over its prequel, but the cover sure is! Look at that, color, backgrounds, actual stuff going on! I love the box art's color balance and there's so much going on in the background that the cover always draws my eye onto it.

The manual isn't bad either, there describing the backstory and items with a few black and white screenshots here and there. Nothing ground breaking but it does its job well enough. A shame it still comes in an early Saturn packaging meaning it's too fragile for its own good. Regardless, the cover alone makes this packaging an improvement over the previous one

Packaging Grade: C+

Bug!

Developer: Realtime Associates
Publisher: Sega

Playing the Clockwork Knight games and 'Bug!' back-to-back really makes me appreciate not only what Mario 64 brought to the table. 3D was this new exciting technology and developers knew they wanted to implement it in their games, but weren't quite sure how it would apply to the platform genre.

Clockwork Knight was a 2D game a few 3D elements graphical elements thrown in, 'Bug!' however tries to take it a step further by creating a (almost) fully 3D game and as a result we got a very experimental game. In a way I do miss the experimentation period of this era, once Mario 64 became the standard it was pretty much expected of every game in the genre to draw some influence from it.

In 'Bug!' you play as well, a bug who is tasked with saving his family... in a movie he's shooting. Yeah it's never really clear if it's just a movie or if you're actually rescuing anyone, I mean if it's just a movie why do the enemies kill you? Maybe I'm just over-thinking this.

As previously mentioned, this is an early 3D platformer, meaning you can movie in any direction, however, much like Clockwork Knight, every character in the game is a pre-rendered sprite. The makes the characters seem very clean and nicely animated but has the downside of making it hard to judge depth and distances between characters. To reduce this issue, most of the levels consist of narrow corridors and walkways, which does help, but the occasional judgement error will still take place.

You might think this system makes the maps rather limited, but the developers actually did a really good job here! Yes, they consist mostly of corridors with the occasional wide room, but the stages are really quite expansive, twisting and turning you scale up or climb down between all the ledges, springs and moving platforms. It's really quite easy to get lost and some levels even place a map at random spots so you know where you need to go. Regardless, the game does become repetitive after a while and the high difficulty only exacerbates this issue.

Bug's actions are rather limited for the most part, he can walk, duck and jump on enemies. Thankfully there are a few power ups scattered about that add to his moves, you'll need them too because this game is HARD. At first it may seem like there's a shortage of checkpoints, but actually bug is kind of secretive in how they work. While there are some sparse checkpoints on most levels, you'll also occasionally run across some guy wearing sunglasses, if you give him a coin not only does it act as a checkpoint, it also sends you to a bonus mini-stage. Another strange design choice was the save option, your progress is saved automatically and it keeps track of your lives and continues, but you need to start each world from the beginning, so some degree of backtracking is involved.

Each stage has a few bonus mini-games as previously mentioned and if you finish three consecutive levels with over 100 gems you're also greeted to a flying stage similar to what you might find in Space Harrier (minus the shooting).

The character models are composed of pre-rendered sprites, similar to what you'd find on Donkey Kong Country or Clockwork Knight, though they are definitely much cleaner here. The environments however look rather dull as they're mostly composed of corridors and a static background screen. Even with the sparse graphics, there it still a degree of pop-in for any platform farther than 20 feet, it's not long before you get tired of watching the same corridors over and over again.

I found the music rather annoying and while bug's comments are fun at first they eventually repeat themselves a little too often.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised with 'Bug!', the gameplay and the graphics have aged a bit and repetitiveness does eventually. With that said, Bug's charm eventually grew on me somewhat.

Trivia: Despite being similar in theme and style to Pixar's 'A bug's life', Sega's game was actually launched 3 years before the movie. Between this and the Toy Story/Clockwork Knight scenario I'm starting to think someone at Pixar loved the Saturn.

Trivia 2: In one of the bonus levels, you get to race against Sonic the Hedgehog, it even uses Sonic 3's sprite and animations. It's kind of strange Sega would just let Realtime Associates use its mascot like that.

Pros:

- Interesting take on the 3D platformer
- Fun gameplay in short bursts
- Character models look pretty good and are nicely animated for the time
- Mini-games and interesting level design help spice up the gameplay

Cons:

- The Music can become rather grating
- It's easy to get lost and the high difficulty can be frustrating
- Gameplay becomes somewhat repetitive after a while
- Visually the maps look extremely dull and boring

Final Grade: C+

Mid-90s CGI cover with very little detail? Check! Blank featureless background? Check! Character(s) either staring blankly at the player or doing nothing that tells us what the game is about? Check! Yep! It's a mid-90s videogame cover with another one of those crappy early Saturn boxes no less.

At least the cover is a bit better than Clockwork Knight's though that's not saying much. The manual is pretty good though with backstory, character and enemy bios and a general description of every item and world.

Packaging Grade: D