The Bug Factor, developed by Canadian developer and publisher Sarbakan, is a trip back to the days of yore where challenging on-foot shooting games like Ikari Warriors and Heavy Barrel were the flavor of the day. The Bug Factor doesn’t deviate from any of this in terms of gameplay and challenge. Are you still hanging on to that copy of Expendable for the Dreamcast? Are you deeply saddened by the cancellation of The Red Star? The Bug Factor might help you scratch that itch.

The premise of The Bug Factor is that mysterious pods have been landing in the Louisiana bayou for decades. Concerned citizens voiced their concerns to the government who adamantly denied there was anything strange going on. It later turns out the concerns of the citizens were right as the pods turned out to be mutant swamp monsters…FROM SPACE! Now the world is faced with the aliens’ evil plan of making the world one giant swamp and the government has to take action. Instead of calling in the military (since it’s an election year), they call in a group known as the Debuggers who pack high powered weapons and drive giant exobots (read: mechs) to do the clean up.

You start the game by choosing one of the five members of the Debuggers, though initially only two are available at first, the rest are unlocked as you progress through the game. If you’re not satisfied with the character you choose, you can always go back and choose another when you die. You’ll find that certain characters are good for certain levels though you’ll tend to stick with one or two more often than not. You control your exobot with the standard WASD configuration while you move your torso and aim with the mouse. Left click shoots and right click will launch a grenade which is slow to land, but devastating when it blows. Each character also has a special melee attack which uses gasoline, but destroys everything in the vicinity and makes them temporarily invulnerable to attacks.

The characters all have something different to bring into battle and as you work through the game, more dynamic and fun characters become available. Dyna Might is a construction worker who constructed an exobot out of construction machinery and fights alien invaders as a side job. Axe is your typical extreme dude who drives more of a hot rod than an exobot complete with flaming bullets and a deadly spinning guitar attack. Yes, a robot with a guitar. Watson Volts is the brainy scientist of the bunch and has the strongest, yet slowest mech. Mona and Lisa are Siamese twins who drive a giant doll and fire two ways at all times. Last but not least, Spike Jackson is a football player and has built his exobot in the image of the perfect offensive lineman. His robot tackles and charges through enemies and can also shoot a giant football to clear the way. The best part is that you can take your new unlocked characters for a spin through earlier levels which adds to the replay value a bit.

Once you have a character selected you set off to battle through the game’s five levels and seemingly thousands of enemies like giant dragonflies, mutated fish, clams, oysters, frogs, gators, birds, and other outlandish assortments of bugs who will attack from all sides and show no mercy. The usual assortment of power-ups are here in the form of wrenches that enemies drop and also double as your overall health. When your exobot is hit, it will lose one level of power, which means the more powered up you are, the more hits you can take. Regular wrenches add one level of power to your bot and lug wrenches, which are dropped by some of the tougher enemies, add multiple levels and are really handy since you can always use the extra amounts of firepower. Enemies will also drop money which act as bonus points, shields that will absorb a good amount of bullets but only one physical attack, TNT which acts as an instant bomb and gasoline which increases your special move meter. You’ll also get bonuses for rescuing citizens in peril.

If you take too many hits, your exobot will explode leaving the driver to fend for themselves until another exobot is delivered. Your nimble driver can’t attack aside from tapping your limited supply of grenades and one hit will spell game over which makes constant dodging a must. After about thirty seconds, a plane will drop a new exobot off, though usually the drop will fall behind a giant enemy that’s impossible to get around. It’s sometimes hard to get your driver to hop into a dropped exobot, opting instead to just stand on top of it. Repeated attempts are common and can get frustrating after a few tries. What’s even more frustrating is that enemies will commonly get a cheap shot on you and attack as soon as you get into your exobot. The game doesn’t allow a moment of invincibility so you can get your bearings so you’ll find yourself scrambling to start firing right away.

There’s a boss fight at the end of every level, which is par for the course with these types of games. Bosses look admittedly better than their underlings and really serve as the centerpiece of what The Bug Factor can do visually. Pretty much every boss battle is the same where you shoot down all of the underlings that fly in while dodging the bosses fire and wait for the boss to open its mouth. Once it opens, unload on it. Wash, rinse, repeat. You’ll have to drain three life bars as you take the boss apart piece by piece, quite literally and have to learn a new pattern for every incarnation of the boss you’re fighting, which usually takes a few tries. In addition to fighting the boss and the swarms of lesser baddies that fly in, you also have a time limit to deal with. If you fail to take down a part of the boss in a set amount of time, the boss will escape and your mission will fail causing you to fight through the level all over again.

The Bug Factor’s visuals are admittedly dated and none of the characters and enemies look particularly good save for the level bosses. Then again, you can’t ask for exorbitant amounts of detail with a game like this given the amounts of enemies that are onscreen all at once. There are a couple of cut scenes which are displayed like a comic book which feature some really nice artwork which is a nice touch. There are some really neat visual effects at work here with some nice looking particles when your mech gets hit, battle damage, and bullets all look really nice especially in the case of Mona and Lisa’s bullets which at their highest levels turn into stars with rainbow trails which just rocks. There are some issues with the video where the resolution doesn’t set correctly and the game either gets stuck in windowed mode when the windows key is hit or the game sits too far to the left in full screen mode, at least on the two systems this game was played on.

The Bug Factor’s soundtrack is made up of a handful of electronic tunes that end up taking a back seat to the carnage of gunfire and explosions. Given the right set of speakers the game can really boom. An options menu that would allow you to adjust the volume controls would have been a nice addition.

While it’s recommended for anyone within the ages of 9-13, even the most hardened gamer is bound to die a few times. It’s hard to recommend this game despite the reasonable asking price of $19.99 since it may not be for everyone. I’d recommend spending a half hour with the demo to see if it’s your cup of tea. Anyone who is looking for a huge challenge, or who just want to get some twitch into their gaming diet might just get something out of The Bug Factor.

- Brad Hicks (Dr. Swank), SwankWorld Media