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Having well and truly conquered the big screen already this year, A Bug's Life is about to launch an assault on the smallest screen there is - the Game Boy Color! There won't be any breathtaking Silicon Graphics technology to render Flik and his friends this time though, so the gameplay had better be something special.

Controlling Flik, the starring ant of the film, you travel each platform filled level from left-to-right, leaf hopping and pit jumping your way to the end. There are always items to be picked up that tie in the level to a memorable part of the movie, such as locating the parts for Flik's improvised harvesting machine.

At first the lavender-hued hero seems well featured, as he can walk, run, jump, bounce, crouch, crawl and lob full stops (sorry, berries) at those filthy grass hoppers. Then you discover that the poor fellow can't chuck his fruit whilst in mid-air, at many points where it would be handy to do so. Next, it turns out that the button for throwing berries also happens to be the button for running, so you end up hurling scarce, precious ammo away by mistake or worse, bolting off a ledge into an ant-drowning puddle quite unintentionally.

A Bug's Life is not all bad though. Flik is large on screen, nicely animated through his many actions and he likes to chip in with endearing waiting animations when you leave him idle for a few seconds. The circus insects all come into play in interesting ways too, like when the big purple rhino beetle helps propel you across an expanse of water. Forget the craze-of-the-moment film title however, and you are left with a rather hollow platform experience, especially when compared to the unbeaten quality of the Game Boy Mario Land games.