Butt Ugly Martians: B.K.M. Battles

"Not as bad as you may think"

I am not at all familiar with the cartoon, nor have I even heard of Butt Ugly Martians before playing this game. Due to it's name I had pretty low expectations for it and could hear myself thinking ''butt ugly is probably gonna be a word for it'' then I started playing and I admit i'm somewhat impressed.

Gameplay 7/10
While I was expecting some dumb platformer this game is actually more like a shooter following a style similar to Bangai O or Metal Warriors. You have three mechs that you can switch to during the game at any point. Each one varies by stats (damage, armor, speed) and color (red, yellow, and blue). Sadly there isn't much difference beyond these each have the same weapons and nothing really stands out between the three other than the colors so I feel they could of done a bit more with this. Anyway you start the game with a 3 minute tutorial describing power ups and the map system. Basicly each stage you have an area you explore in order to find keys to proceed further into the stage and then onto the boss. You can go into the map and it'll show the location of each key and it will fill in each part of the area you have been to. It's pretty easy, the main difficulty is the fact that the energy you have carries onto the next stage, and the later stages tend to get rather difficult. Despite a bit medicore it's actually fun.

Graphics 7/10
Not too bad, just wish more could of been done. The backgrounds are pretty nice. The only low point really is that the enemies don't vary much and aren't very detailed. The areas don't vary much either following the same graphics pattern over and over.

Music 8/10
This is probably the most high point of the game, the music is awesome. From the title screen to the last stage I enjoyed it and it really got me going through the game.

Replay Value 6/10
While it starts out easy it gets pretty difficult as I mentioned earlier. For a game of this style it feels pretty long, almost too long. You have 7 stages and about 4 areas each stage, and each area has a boss. While I had fun playing Butt Ugly Martians and didn't feel like it was too much of a chore beating it. I feel there are better GBA games out there to play again other than this, but it was fun while it lasted.

Over All 7/10
This is not as bad as alot would think from the title.
If you are a fan of the show or a shooter fan. I'd suggest you give it a try as it is pretty decent.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/06/03