Developer: VARSAV Game Studios
Publisher: Bigben Interactive
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch
Tested on: PS4, Switch
Bee Simulator – Review
Over the last few years adding the word ‘Simulator’ to a game’s title has become a hype. It’s often not relevant if the game is an actual simulator or not. Recently we reviewed a piece of utter garbage called Ultra Off-Road 2019: Alaska, which also had the word Simulator in its subtitle. The game proved to be, probably, the worst game ever created and had nothing to do with a simulation experience. The only thing that remotely resembled the traits of a sim game was the debug menu that you could access. Traumas from previous games aside, Bee Simulator looked cute in the different trailers we initially saw but ended up becoming rather sleep-inducing.
Story
You’ll be playing as a new honey bee that is seeing the world for the first time. Sadly, you are born in a time of distress, as the hive will soon have to move as humans are looking to chop down the tree where the hive is located. Nonetheless, you’re tasked to do your job as a honey bee to collect pollen and do random tasks nobody cares about.
It’s no secret that the game is somewhat child-friendly in both its storytelling ways, as well as how the dialogues and quests are handled. You’ll be spoken to as if you’re watching Dora the Explorer and the dialogues are so boring and bland and have gigantic pauses in-between. More than often, your bee will also talk to you as if you’re slow or at least dimwitted, as it often states the obvious. We reckon this will not bother children that much, but if you’re an adult, that has gone through kindergarten, you will get annoyed quite quickly.
Graphics
The graphical prowess of Bee Simulator is quite unimpressive, to say the least. The game looks like it was developed for a previous generation and this mainly shows when looking at the human character models. You’ll constantly come across the same guy who is wearing a tank top with a baseball cap, and truth be told, he looks like crap. You’ll see faces and heads getting distorted when you approach the workers with a hardhat and so on. Overall things look very basic and dull, but the world is colorful and somewhat fun to fly around in. The game could have benefited a lot from having next-gen graphics as it would make it more sim-worthy in this case.
Sound
The music is soothing and has a nice ring to it, but that’s pretty much all that’s great about the game’s sound design. The conversations are seemingly aimed at toddlers with extreme overacting and a cast that does horrible impressions of different accents. When talking to a ‘wise old’ bee, you hear it’s a 20-year-old that’s trying to sound old. The wasps you come across all seem to have a learning disability or have a mental capacity of a five-year-old. While these dialogues are clearly designed for children, having to listen to them as an adult isn’t a fun adventure you’re willing to undertake.
Gameplay
Even though the game is called Bee Simulator, there isn’t much of a simulation going on. The game feels somewhat adventurous (for little children) and has a hint of arcade gameplay. For the most part, you’ll be buzzing around, flying through circles, be it to collect pollen or race with another bee. Other than that you’ll be dancing by copying the other bee’s moves or you can fight wasps by completing a quick-time event or sting bullies to chase them away.
The overall execution is very simplistic, but everything falls flat under poor game design and bad programming. During race events, you’ll notice that your AI opponent isn’t bound by the same rules, as he misses nearly every ring you are forced to take. Humans can be stung, but they just exclaim that they’re in pain, but they keep on smiling and going on about their business. Another part of poor programming is wanting to press a button to progress through the gaps in a dialogue, which will simply skip the entire thing altogether. This is quite annoying, as you’ll miss elements from the (poorly written) quests. Last but not least, for some quests you have to sting people, which is ridiculous as you’re a bee, and you die when you sting someone. In this game you are immortal and you can shank the hell out of as many people as you like.
One thing that is decently handled in the game is the control scheme. The controls work as they should, and it’s quite easy to navigate with your honey bee, even through tunnels and other obstacles. While you’ll certainly bump into things from time to time, for flight controls the game has been decently fleshed out. This is what actually makes the game playable.
You can also opt to play with friends in a split-screen setup, playing on different maps. You’ll still be doing the same things as when playing the campaign, but now you can just perform menial tasks with friends. It’s a fun way for a parent and child to play together, but the game is ultimately extremely bland and boring that we don’t see this one surviving family-hour that long.
Conclusion
Bee Simulator is nowhere near being an actual simulator. The game lets you perform repetitive tasks all neatly wrapped in a child-friendly jacket. While there are some good ideas present in the game, the actual gameplay is so boring you’ll be dropping this one quicker than Mohammed Ali downed his opponents. This one can prove to be entertaining for children, as the controls feel okay-ish, but some tasks will eventually frustrate them and the current price tag is way too high for an unbelievably poor polished experience such as this.
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