| ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age. | |
| PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids. | |
| OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age. | |
| NOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age. |
Parents need to know that this movie tie-in game is best played by kids ages 8 through 12. Activision has taken the movie sequences and expanded them to create unique, exciting gameplay missions. A pollinator gun is used to extract pollen from healthy flowers and sprinkle it on unhealthy flowers, but also to fire pollen at pesky insects who fall down and fade away.
BEE MOVIE GAME, based on Bee Movie, is a linear game with Mini game side quests. You start in New Hive City, a hexagonal world that looks just like the movie set, and play as Barry, the new bee college graduate who can't commit to doing the same job in the hive for the rest of his life. As you walk or drive your car around the hive's many roadways, you will find jobs waiting for you to try to earn honey snacks: You can sort good honey from bad, unload tanks of honey from trucks, or take the good bee citizens around the city by providing a taxi service. The heart of the game is presented in 15 missions outside the hive, which track the plot of the movie and place you in hazardous situations such as engaging in aerial dogfights with wasps, avoiding collisions with cars, and flying through a rainstorm.
While this game features many unique levels of inventive gameplay, it falls short of a perfect rating because it can be confusing and repetitive. In the hive, you frequently hit invisible walls and spend a lot of time trying to find new areas. Some of the mission instructions are inadequate, and the save points are too far apart. Also, the frequent activity of pollinating flowers quickly becomes tedious.
In addition to the story mode that retells the movie, the game has a multiplayer mode that offers racing games and two-player bee-themed arcade games. The Wii version has some games that are unique to that version. Bee Movie Game is geared for kids, but the gameplay is so challenging that the youngest fans of the movie won't be able to play it. This game is best for kids ages 8 to 12.
Families can talk about how the game compares to the movie. When watching the movie, were there scenes that looked like they would work well in a video game? What scenes would you have chosen for the video game? Did you like playing the missions or the Mini games? What made you want to play this game? Was it all the marketing hype of the movie? Families might also want to discuss the role of bees in the ecosystem.
| Platforms: | Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Windows |
| Available online? | Not available online |
| Genre: | Role Playing |
| Developer: | Activision |
| Release date: | October 25, 2007 |
| Price: | $20-50 |
| ESRB rating: | E for Mild Cartoon Violence |
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