Bugdom 1.2

The trial version and feature set could be more generous, but Bugdom nonetheless strikes us as an entertaining pickup. In this game, you play a fly that inhabits the world beneath the grass and flowers. Your eventual goal is to rescue the ladybugs form their cages, and along the way you pick up fruit to restore your health, clovers to increase your score, and keys to unlock doors. Of course, you'll face plenty of enemies along the way including slugs, vicious army ants, and wasps. You can defend yourself by kicking them, or you can roll into a ball (a la Sonic the Hedgehog) and slam into them. We like the game's colorful, humorous, and well-designed 3D graphics, and the way the camera tracks the fly around the board adds a nice touch. The one thing we wished for was a map for easier navigating the leafy maze and tracking the movements of the foe insects. Bugdom doesn't offer a large feature set. The most notable customization options let you activate Easy mode and save your game, but you can't even disable the soundtrack. Also, the demo only lets you play on a couple of levels, but that should be enough to give you an idea of whether this game is worth buying. Though children will be Bugdom's most enthusiastic audience, older players are likely to find something of merit as well.