Buck Bumble is a insect-based flying shoot-’em-up. It’s set in a small area of a rural English down, where the land has been polluted, creating the rise of evil robotic super wasps poised to take over the insect kingdom. The game really surprised me when the main theme kicked in – a garage song about the biggity Buck Bumble. The developers, Argonaut, are particularly notable for creating the Super FX chip and Star Fox for the SNES.

My biggest complaint with Buck Bumble is the level design and graphics – its supposed to be set in the garden, but other than the very occasional sight – like a bench – it doesn’t really feel like you’re a small creature, and you just get to see lots of ugly browns and greens and there’s an immense amount of fog due to the poor draw distance.

The gameplay, however, is a lot of fun, with an impressive amount of different enemies getting a wasp-like makeover that you’ll need to content with. The controls are smooth and flying around is a lot of fun. The difficulty ramps up very quickly, though, and when you die you start the mission from scratch (the lives are for the pointless score system). You will find different weapons throughout the game, offering you lots of ways to dispatch your foes.

The game offers 19 levels. Most involving killing all enemies in an area, activating a switch for a door, while others have you transporting nuclear bombs. The levels do blend together a lot, though, with the game also throwing more and more enemies at you.

That said, Buck Bumble is an enjoyable game.

Fun

Buck Bumble is average in too many ways. Playable yet unspectacular, and rather workmanlike in execution, it’s a pleasant enough to wile away a few hours. Bur ‘Bee’-rilliant? Hardly.

James Price, N64 Magazine #20. Review Score: 70%

Remake or remaster?

A remaster would be good, although a sequel with more “giant human world” stuff would also be great.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Buck Bumble.