Sometimes games get a lot more buzz than they deserve… this time, it’s a game with a shitload of bees, so maybe it makes sense.

Bee Dodger, by Steven Colie and ShirtTurtle is a rather generic side-scrolling ‘avoid the enemies’ game with very little to offer in the way of innovation. The reason I feel it’s getting a lot more hype then it deserves is the involvement of Dan Palidin, a talented artist who worked on award winning games like Alien Hominid and Dad n’ Me.

The art in this game is pretty decent, considering there’s only about 4 different ‘characters’ and none of them have many animations (the wings actually flap though!). The background is just a bunch of motion lines with an underlying color that changes as you progress. Because of the similarities in style to Dan Palidin’s art, however, people seem to be much more impressed then they would otherwise. Maybe they think Dan was the artist on the game… I don’t know.

The sound is also pretty weak in the game. The effects are pretty minimal, but at least they aren’t annoying. It’s the music that really carries this game. The music IS actually done by Dan Palidin and is a bit of a Radio Disney sounding song. You know.. those wacky dance songs that drill into your brain because they have some silly phrase that gets repeated over and over? Well in this case, it’s watermelon.

The gameplay is pretty simple and easy to pick up, but really, not very much fun. Basically you fly around with the arrow keys and try not to hit other bees. That’s it.

The first time I played the game I did rather enjoy it. After that, I didn’t really feel any desire to play again, so for people like me, it’s good for maybe 2-5 minutes.

Overall, the game just comes off as an interactive music video, because the music is the only real draw to this game.

[ Listen To Bee Dodger ]