Bee Patrol Review
iPhone App
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Bee Patrol Review

Our Review by Jennifer Allen on November 2nd, 2010
Rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar :: BRILLIANT
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Like Flight Control, but with bees

Review Update: 12/20/10, Version 1.5.0
The new update for Bee Patrol offers even more value for money. There's a new world (or colony as the game likes to call them) in the guise of Violent Volcano which is excellent fun. As well as that there are new flower types that can move and rotate making for much more of a challenge than before. Even better, multi-touch support has now been implemented which means you can control multiple bees and their flight paths which makes everything that little bit easier to manipulate.

Bee Patrol is fantastic. The added colony and tweaks makes it all the more worthy of a purchase.


Developer: IslandJohn.com
Price: $0.99/$2.99 for iPad version
Version Reviewed: 1.1.0
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 4

Graphics / Sound Overall Rating: starstarstarstarblankstar
Game Controls Overall Rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar
Gameplay [rating: 90/100]
Replay Value Overall Rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar

[rating: overall]


I don't know about in the USA, but here in Europe, the poor honey bee is dying out due to various and quite complicated problems. According to The Happening, this means that the world is ending. Hopefully not, as this means we'd have less time to play little gems like Bee Patrol.

Immediately, it's difficult not to compare Bee Patrol with Flight Control. It looks the same, it even sounds the same. Almost. It's actually more in-depth than Flight Control, though, and just as ridiculously addictive. Take me for example. I started playing it while in bed. I thought I'd play it for just 10 minutes before going to sleep. An hour later and I noticed the time. OK, just 5 more minutes. Oh...is it really 3am? Darn.

Bee Patrol follows the same idea as Flight Control. You have to create flight paths for your bee minions in order to get back to the hive. Along the way you need to collect nectar. Achieve the target score and move onto the next level. Sounds simple, doesn't it? It is, but there's a bit more to it than that.

You see, the bees come flooding in after a while, just like the airplanes and helicopters did in Flight Control. Plus you need to collect quite a lot of nectar. To do this you need to point each bee at a few flowers before eventually sending them back to the hive. You have to pay attention to factors such as the colour of the bee matching the colour of the flower, and even the fact that bees can die if they don't return to the hive fast enough. Not forgetting the fact that there are obstacles in your way such as nasty red bees, rain showers to slow you down and spiders. Spiders!

While the game starts calm and not overly challenging, the difficulty quickly ramps up. It never feels unfairly hard though. It just keeps you on your toes instead. It's fantastically addictive too. There are 3 worlds and 9 levels in each, along with a survival mode if you just want to see how far you can go, so there's plenty to do.

Throw in OpenFeint and GameCenter support and there's a heck of a lot of fun to be had here. I actually enjoyed it a little more than Flight Control simply because there's a bit more to it. High praise indeed.

It's inexpensive and it's fun. What more could you need? Flight Control has got some serious competition.

iPhone Screenshots

(click to enlarge)

Bee Patrol screenshot 1 Bee Patrol screenshot 2 Bee Patrol screenshot 3 Bee Patrol screenshot 4 Bee Patrol screenshot 5
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