Buck Bumble

"It's not bad, but not so good either."

I don't know the history about this game. The only thing I know about this game is about how I got it. It all started when I had gone to a used game store. I saw this game on the shelf and the box art caught my eye. The cover looked interesting and the description on the back was deceiving as well. I bought it for a low price and eagerly went home to play it. I sort of found myself disappointed about buying this game. This game was only fun for the first two days. Enough rambling, now for the review.

Graphics 6/10
Let's start with the visual qualities of this game. The graphics in this game are very sub-par and average. The environments are dull-looking but not hard to look at. Colors used on the characters and environments are satisfactory, but nothing special. Some of the things in the game have textures that look very jagged on their outlines. To picture this, imagine what a bad Playstation title would look like. The weapons are hard to look at, but you can still tell one from another. Overall, the graphics are nothing special to look at.
Graphics 6/10
It's sad to see this kind of potential wasted like this. The graphics could have been far more if the graphic artists tried harder.

Story 4/10
This is what bought the score down. It starts in England where a chemical spill takes place. The spill causes some insects to mutate and become evil. They build an army and want to take over the garden. The story is an emphasis on ''Bad guys take over the world.'' The only things that saved this score from a zero is that they tried to be original and made it so that the bad guys tried to take over a garden full of insects instead of the world and it wasn't a painfully generic ''Save the damsel in distress,'' story. Besides that, the only one who can stop them is Buck Bumble. That part is really cheesy.
Story 4/10
For trying to make a remotely original story, you writers did a little good, but it wouldn't have hurt to try to stray from the path and gotten real creative.

Gameplay 5/10
This didn't give the game a good boost. You are told to do missions by a computer to stop the bad guys. There are so many hard missions in this game and you must beat them by getting new weapons and doing what the computer at the beginning of every mission tells you to do. The only thing that gave this points is that every mission is different. Some are normal (destroy all the enemies in the level), some are a little out of the ordinary (shut down three satellites), and some are just really odd (use a stun gun to stun baby insects and bring them to a teleport). Sometimes it feels repetitive doing what the computer tells you to do all the time. Worst of all, you need a Controller Pak or a Memory Card of some kind to save your progress.
Gameplay 5/10
No comment.

Sound and Music 4/10
The music was satisfactory in the levels, but the title screen music was a great song! It's a catchy rap song that anyone would like (even if you hate rap as much as I do).
As for the sound....

BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!! AAUGGGHH! I'm sick of the buzzing sound that Buck constantly makes while he flies. If you're thinking you don't always have to fly and you can just walk, don't count on it. It's impossible to finish any mission without the ability of flight. Besides this annoying sound, the sounds are real casual. The only other sounds you hear are gunfire sounds and the boring explosions your enemies make most of the time when they are defeated.
Sound 4/10
I just wish they got rid of that annoying buzzing sound. I might go insane if I have to hear it again.

Replay Value 3/10
The game is so long and tedious at times. You might never want to play it again after you beat it. Especially if you are one of the people that had to retry a mission a hundred times.

OVERALL
In the long run, this game is only worth a two-day rent. If you see it at any store and you are tempted to buy it, save yourself the trouble and avoid it. Make like a car driver and steer very clear of this one.

Rock!
- It makes a nice sound when you chuck it out the window.
- Fancy, all-purpose doorstop/paperweight
- If you have enemies, show them a copy of Buck Bumble. They'll never bug you again.

Rap...
- Everything else....

My Grand Total 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 05/02/04