Bug Too!

Remember the glorious days of yore, when true 3D was but a lanky, awkward teen trying to make a name for itself When games that featured a 3D playing field and choppy, poorly-animated 2D characters Well, prepare to relieve those uncomfortable years as we look back at Bug Too!, the sequel to one of the Saturn's flagship titles. As much as I love the Saturn, the nostalgia factor isn't high enough with this title to merit a passing grade.

The second incarnation in the Bug family introduces a swanky new character, Superfly, and the loveable maggot dog is also given its section of the proverbial spotlightpie. After becoming internationally renowned heroes, the Bug cast of characters are asked to star in a series of movies that need to be completed that afternoon; surprisingly, they're all supposed to be high-grossing blockbusters; more surprising is the fact that they're shooting several movies in one day and this isn't a porn studio. Minor plot issues aside, the gameplay is a carbon-copy of the first game; that is, the characters can move forward and backward, left and right, but this is hardly a 3-D game. The character models looked pretty good for the time, as good as they had to I suppose.

There are a few new bells and whistles, because both Sega circa 1996 and Chad know how you love bells and whistles. A few dizzying 3-D effects are employed, such as spiraling walkways that spin the screen around inducing carnival-style nausea (the best kind!). The music and sound effects are nicely done, setting the mood for whichever "set" (level to us non-Hollywood simpletons) you are currently working on. In addition, depending on the character you select your game changes ever so slightly; the standard 100 objects for a shiny new extra life device will have you collecting either food pellets, dog bones, or disco balls (AGAIN with the seventies).

Unfortunately, this is little more than the first game with an old layer of 1970s lead paint covering the asbestos. While I enjoyed both titles in their respective days, the overall experience seems far too slow and plodding, which is most definitely not the stuff of memorable action games. I sincerely wanted to give this a better score, but as Plautus once said, "Factum est illud, fierie infectum non potest" (what's done is done, it cannot be undone).