Buck Bumble

However the soundtrack and its main theme, both composed by Justin Scharvona, were praised after release, and it's enjoyed a modern resurgence of popularity, despite the game's otherwise relative obscurity.

• Developer — Argonaut Software • Publisher — Ubi Soft • Producer — Nick Clarke • Designer — Simon Keating • Programmer — Carl Graham • Composer — Justin Scharvona • Genre — Third-person shooter • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer • Platforms — Nintendo 64 • Title — Buck Bumble

• Illustration — Buzz Ball, a football-like game, is one of the multiplayer modes. The game features 3D graphics, with the camera being fixed behind the titular Buck Bumble in missions, of which there are nineteen. A mission consists of fulfilling some objective, like destroying Herd radar dishes, which when completed immediately triggers a teleportation animation that leads to a level summary and save screen. The top of the in-mission screen displays a radar used to locate enemies within the level, a damage metre, the currently equipped weapon, and in the bottom right corner, the current mission objective. Buck can be armed with up to eleven different weapons, such as a stun gun, laser or rocket launcher. While levels are height-restricted, that is essentially the only movement restriction placed on the player outside of world geometry, as they are able to freely fly in the air or walk around to complete the premade levels. Some levels are split up into multiple distinct locations that the player has to reach by passing through teleporters, or gates. Points of interest in levels are mission objectives, weapons, nectar from flowers to regain energy, and bonus points. Several of the enemies in levels such as beetles and wasps have special generators that release another enemy when the first enemy is defeated. This requires the player to destroy the generator itself to defeat the enemies and clear the stage. The levels also feature stage hazards, such as water where the player can drown if submerged for more than a couple of seconds.

Buck Bumble has two multiplayer modes. The first, Buck Battle, allows up to two players to engage in an airborne dog-fight deathmatch on a preset map. The second is a football-style game called Buzz Ball. The goal is to hit a giant football into the opposing player's net, while still fighting with each other. In the latter mode, players are able to use two weapons from the game: a simple zapper, which gently moves the ball along, and a rocket launcher, which sends the ball flying.

The game takes place in the surroundings of a chemical factory in London, England, after a chemical spill has caused insects in the surrounding area to mutate. Several different types of these mutated insects gather together and become the evil "Herd", that are determined to take over the garden, and eventually the whole world. The game casts the player as Buck Bumble, a volunteer bumblebee that is implanted with cyborg technology. He is part of an organization known as "The Resistance", which is trying to stop the Herd Army. Buck's missions send him on multiple tasks, such as defending the resistance base, attacking Herd supply lines while travelling through sewers, and eventually fighting the Herd's mantis-like Queen.

• Illustration — The companion "Buck Bumble Pack" made by Joy Tech The game was built with the rumble feature in mind, allowing the player to feel the impact of getting hit, with the intention of increasing the sense of realism. This feature was capitalised on by Joy Tech, which made an official "Buck Bumble Pack" that was sold in the UK with the game at Dixons and Currys, however it was a third-party peripheral not licensed by Nintendo. According to the lead programmer Carl Graham, the game started out as a test of a flight simulator made by him for fun, before it "evolved into a flying bee, and the horror we know as Buck Bumble today was born". The soundtrack was composed by Justin Scharvona and is entirely in the genre of speed garage because he wanted to "go for something that [stylistically fit] in with the futuristic, and [something] not cutesy, something a bit harder". As both techno and jungle were considered overdone, speed garage was picked as it was "funkier than house and garage".

In recent years, Buck Bumble has gained a large cult following for its theme music. An unofficial YouTube upload of the song uploaded in 2008 has attained 18 million views, and meme videos mashing up the song with other video games have proven popular. Joshua Wolens of PC Gamer described the game as a "banger" and a potential reboot as a "triumph [of] human spirit" while also admitting they were only familiar with the theme song. Stephanie DeCleene of TheGamer described the game as being "almost entirely lost to time" aside from being known as "that one game with the great theme song".