The game dives straight into the plot of the movie, meaning you take on the role of Lucas, a young boy who shrunken to the size of an ant by the ant colony living in his front yard after he destroyed parts of their habitat. In order to return to his normal size, he must “become an ant” by living the normal day-to-day life of an ant and collecting 100 firestones scattered throughout the garden. Sadly though, much of this plot is left out of the game’s story, leaving glaring plot-holes between levels, something that inevitably reduces the impact of the conclusion. Be advised: you may want to see the film before actually purchasing or renting the game.
After a rather shoddy introductory scene, you’ll find yourself within the ant mound where you can travel to any area of the garden via two methods: by walking or by selecting the area on your map and warping there. It's also here that the council chambers are where you must go to select missions in order to progress through the game. The missions themselves are very repetitive in nature because they follow the same basic principle: go from point-A to point-B. For example, in a few missions, you’ll have to rescue ants trapped in a series of spider webs by fighting off all enemy spiders surrounding the area and then safely escort the ants back to a safety point. In other missions, you’ll have to locate sugar cubes or some other form of food, and carry them back to the safety point whilst avoiding insects from snatching them away from you. That said though, there are a few circumstances where you'll have to fight a boss or race against a rival ant team, but these are far and few between.
Looks like his parents had a party last Saturday.
So exactly what enemies can you expect in The Ant Bully? Well, like in any insect game, you’ll find yourself going up against spiders, wasps, earwigs and weird termites. It sounds like a nice variety, but when you’re fighting swarms of the creatures every time you turn a corner, the novelty wears away quickly. At your disposal to rid yourself of your insect foes are four weapons: a staff, the silk squirter, the dart bow and the seed bomb. The staff acts as your main weapon to hit your enemies with while the dart bow acts as a long-range weapon. In contrast to this, the silk squirter acts as a stealth weapon by blinding and immobilising your enemies for a brief period. The seed bomb can be used to blow up enemies or certain objects, such as hedges and blocked hallways. You’re also given the ability to climb walls when you spot a wall trail, lift items twice your body mass and, if you come across special pads, you can also communicate telepathically to other ants to form bridges and ladders so you can reach certain areas to collect objects.
Visually, the levels in The Ant Bully are creative and have been crafted to make you feel like you really are an ant-sized boy, by including giant-sized objects scattered throughout the garden. This includes glass pieces, coins, a diamond ring and even flowers, which are the equivalent of trees in size terms. Another creative aspect to this are the hazards you’ll come across. In the glass garden area for instance, broken glass litters the surrounding area and enhances sunlight to form a beam of heat similar to the effect of a magnify glass. Unfortunately, these are pretty much the only impressive visuals the game has to offer. The rest consists of below-average cut scenes and low-resolution environments.
I told them I can't drive.
A problem also occurs during the game’s lock-on system when fighting enemies. Occasionally, when you lock onto an enemy, for some strange reason the camera doesn’t let you face your enemy at the same time. Instead you have to take the lock off and then reposition yourself so you are facing your enemy. Aside from this, a lot of the time when you do lock on successfully, you’ll find yourself getting caught in between enemies. To make this matter worse, you can’t actually see the enemies behind you until they come close to you, which means that you’ll likely be hit by them. If the camera had been set a little further back from your position, it would’ve been a better system because then at least you would have had some time to react to it.
Like many other games based on movies, The Ant Bully doesn’t have the entire cast support from the film (only Bruce Campbell managed to lend his voice for both the game and film) which dramatically lowers the quality of the title. There are several instances when you’ll get annoyed at the voicing, particularly with the ant children. In one mission where you have to rescue them, they continuously say, “help me please,” or “Over here! Over here!” The delivery of these lines is at such a high-pitched tone that you almost want too physically slap the ants just to shut them up. Other cases of irritating voicework occur when you’re exploring the ant mound. There are certain areas which will have the ants say the exact same lines over and over again every time you walk past them. Also, you’ll find that when an ant is trying to give you some information regarding what to do next in a mission, they’ll suddenly be cut off by the speech of Lucas passing some irrelevant comment. As for the music, it doesn’t really stand out that much. You’ll only be hearing a few simple tunes.
This won't buy me a PS3 mum.
In short, The Ant Bully game is like most other games based on movies: an excuse for game developers to cash in on the movie’s fame. The gameplay is repetitive and there's hardly any support from the cast of the film. It's obvious that the game has been aimed at kids, and it's only this target audience that will get any enjoyment out of playing it and even then, it wouldn’t last too long. You're highly recommended to avoid this game at all costs.
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