The Ant Bully

Who Would Bully an ant? Me for one, having been subjected to this interminable quest to help the pathetic little creatures protect their rancid, teeming nest. Like the movie, the game centres on Lucas, a boy who's been miniaturised to the size of the average red ant. Coping well psychologically, Lucas befriends his mandibled companions and becomes an accepted member of the nest How this qualifies as children's entertainment and not the stuff of some black, twisted nightmare is beyond me.

Also in line with the movie, your task here is to learn some handy ant skills, ranging from wood beetle-killing to pupae collection, and to scuttle up that greasy pole to become a major player in ant society.

But oh god, the drab, repetitive environments! The irritating tittle-tattle of your ant chums! The soul-sapping repetitiveness! This is console-ported 3D action-adventure platforming at its most unimaginative and ill-executed. The controls are faintly cumbersome, the camera a wild, mindless beast the visuals dour, the combat tedious.

Life's already a constant struggle against bloody spiders and wasps - give us some escapism in our videogames, will you? Worse still are the torturously familiar mission goals: find some of these, kill some of those, hooray! If you're really desperate for insect-based gaming, stick to burning ants with your magnifying glass.