A bee of a different color
The Bee Movie Game is quite simple. It’s a large environment, mostly based in the hive, where you go around and basically play mini-games. By playing them you earn points and honey. There isn’t too much to the game itself, mainly because it was made for a younger audience. That I can understand. In fact, the gameplay isn’t that bad considering the simplicity of it all. What’s even cooler about the gameplay is that it’s actually voiced over by Jerry Seinfeld, which is unusual for a movie licensed game.
I can see where this game will certainly satisfy the younger gamers in the household. You basically do a lot of racing, collecting and destroying (not in a terrible bad way, but compete on pollinating and collecting pollen from flowers while taking out Wasps). Aside from these things, the biggest problem I have with The Bee Movie Game is the complicated control scheme. The walking around isn’t bad, but you’re asking a younger gamer, someone below the age of 10, to walk in and pick up a game controller – and play. You simply can’t do that with this game, but it’s asking you to. You’ll be forced to find out new items (literally, you’ll be forced to find an explanation of how items work and how certain events work) and you’ll be forced to deal with non-kid friendly controls (see the pollination scene for this explanation).
Overall, the gameplay and controls are good/bad. Which isn’t a good combination for the two.
I see bees!
If kids are looking at the movie and looking at the game, they’ll be more than happy with both. Graphically, it’s a beautiful game. The environments are alive and the cutscenes aren’t separated from the actual gameplay moments. When you can get that good and you put that much care into the game, then you know it might be good. As for the voice/sound/music, it’s all quite good. As I mentioned previously, you’ll get the voice talent of Jerry Seinfeld in the game, which is shocking. I can’t remember the last time a a movie voice has found its way into a game. Not sure if it’s happened, but if someone wants to confirm this, email me.
Anyway, it’s nice to see this side of the game taken care of perfectly.
Is it worth the wax?
I think it’s up to you to make that decision. For $49.99, I can think of a lot better games for kids than this. But if you’re in love with the movie and your child isn’t a videogame snob like myself, then you might want to rent before you buy.
The adventure itself is endless, but that depends solely on how many mini-games the child wants to play. The replay value is also determined on the patience of the child. If they don’t mind playing a racing game, that doesn’t have much to it, over and over again – then they’ll love this game and it’s worth the beeswax.
Final Thoughts
For the common gamer, this is a typical movie licensed game, but it does have an attitude to it that upswings the value to good rather than bad. For $49.99, it might be best to avoid, but if the movie was great and your child loves it, it might be okay. Just take into consideration the controls before you buy though. If they’ve played the 360 enough then it should be fine, but if they haven’t… well… I’ll leave that up to you.