Escape from Bug Island

"We should have never come to this island!"

Intro:

Escape from Bug Island, oh how much cooler you sounded back in 2006 under the name Necro Nesia. A game which has been on the Wii radar for some time now finally released, but lets admit... few people cared prior to launch and even fewer after.

I for one watched this cheesy game for a long time, why? Because I am a sucker for low budget B-Movie games and now that I have “escaped from Bug Island” myself (a journey that last's about 5 hours) I have decided to write a review to share my thoughts with the world.

Story:

The story line in this game is trying desperately to be serious but fails terribly, this actually works to the games advantage as within 30 minutes of playing you'll laugh out loud more than you would during an average television comedy. Basically you, some shotgun wielding jerk and your soon to be girlfriend go to “Bug Island” for a camping trip. The girl and generic tough guy loser get lost and you go searching to save them. The writing is bad, the voice acting is bad, the digital acting is awful and eventually time travel comes up, that's right! Bug Island has TIME TRAVEL 

This brutal story should get a 3 but because it's the perfect example of cheesy it gets a 6/10

Gameplay:
Run towards the blinking yellow light, smash bugs along the way save and continue. That is how you play on Bug Island. Use bats, knife, swords, guns, rocks, bombs etc to kill giant preying mantis, beetles, and the odd tremor like beast, lizard women and the very bizarre canine man.

Crushing these bugs is handled with the Wii-Remote, it's not done in an intuitive way but it works. You can either attack from 1st or 3rd person but the later is rarely more useful unless you are using the odd throwing weapon (when it's forced upon you).

There is also the odd fetch quest but they take minutes and you are guided to them (like everything else) by a blink on your map. Also occasionally there is a fun balancing game on logs which involves the Wii-Remote. It's really the only case in the game where it's used well.

So Bug Island's gamplay narrowly escapes failure with a 5.5/10

Graphics and Sound:

The Wii has had allot of developers port lazy last gen efforts to it in order to get a quick payoff from this hot selling system. Bug Island is one of the few ground up games for the Wii… but it doesn't show!

This is not even passable for a last gen game. This would've been a great dreamcast game in 1999 but in 2007 it makes people violently ill. There is nothing “next gen” about this title… God of War, Halo 2, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4, FF12, Shadow of the Colossus and many, MANY more last gen titles stand miles above this in both audio and visual. However for some odd reason, it just adds to the B movie fun of this campy $30 title.

Graphics and Sound warp back to 1999 for a 3/10

Conclusion:

Escape from Bug Island is not good at anything, but its low budget charm keeps it from feeling bad at everything. Once you play it, there's something to like and you will probably play through all five hours of it without feeling you've wasted too much of your life. So if you see Bug Island for $10 someday, pick it up before it falls into obscurity because the internet will be making inside jokes about this title for years to come.

Final Score 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/19/07