Ant Bully
Score: 68% ESRB: Everyone 10+ Publisher: Midway Developer: A2M Media: GCD/1 Players: 1 Genre: Platformer
Graphics & Sound: Ant Bully, like a lot of movie tie-ins, isn't the best game in its genre, but it's still playable. Graphically, the game does a good job of rendering the characters and general feel of the movie. Everyone from Lucas Nickles (the incredible shrinking boy) to Kreela and Fugaz look the part. Unfortunately, when it comes to the non-major characters, they get really generic feeling really fast. Whether it is the other ants in the colony or the various enemies, after a while, they all start to blend together. Much like the graphics, the vocals are good for the main characters, but the rest of it seems phoned-in and bland. The only actors who reprised their roles were Zach Tyler as Lucas, Bruce Campbell as Fugaz and Regina King as Kreela. Consequentially, these are the characters I mentioned above whose models seem to have gotten the most attention.
Gameplay: Ant Bully, for those that haven't heard about the film, follows a young boy who seems to enjoy terrorizing ant hills. One day, the ants of one of his victim colonies decide they need to do something. The colony's wizard, Zoc, develops a formula that shrinks Lucas and forces him to see the world from their perspective. The events from the game show you what happens off screen, and follows Lucas on various hunt-and-gather missions where he must retrieve various objects that will help the colony avoid the exterminator and get him back to his natural size. Like the graphics and audio, the missions in the game get repetitive quickly. Most missions involve you using your various ant-summoning powers to cross the environmental obstacles and collect what you need, while taking out wave after wave of the same enemies. What Ant Bully tries to do to set itself apart from most platformers is use the colony's sense of teamwork to help Lucas achieve his goals. With the help of the other ants, Lucas can create ladders, bridges and slingshots that will help him get past troublesome obstacles.
Difficulty: Ant Bully is an easy game. Granted it is geared more towards the younger gamers, so you can't fault it for having the difficulty turned down some. The only real issue is that the game never really increases in difficulty. With the exception of a couple of bosses, what you see in the first couple of levels is what you will see in the last couple. The only real difference is that you will have a few different enemies and a few new weapons, but the toughness of the game never really changes.
Game Mechanics: Ant Bully has a basic control scheme that has a few issues. As far as the layout of the buttons, it is fine. "A" lets you interact with objects or roll, "X" is for dropping Seed Bombs, "Y" is to use your silk gun, "B" swings your staff and "Z" shoots your darts. Notice there isn't a jump button. It still bothers me when you have no control over when your character jumps. Much like the Legend of Zelda games, Lucas only jumps when you get him too near a ledge. Granted, this is just a minor annoyance, but when coupled with things like the slightly less than responsive attacks and the quirky lock-on system for your projectile weapons -- it just gets to be a bit much. Ant Bully is a platformer with a few new tricks (mostly the ant-colony features), but the rest of the game is bland. Unless you can't get enough of the movie, then rent the game first.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
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