Ant Island is a happy place 364 days out of the year. There's plenty of work to accomplish and every task is structured very carefully so that everyone knows exactly what to do. The one day that's not so pleasant is when the ants have give up a share of their hard-earned food to Hopper's gang of grasshoppers. With that in mind, a young ant named Flik decided to make things easier by inventing a machine to increase food production.

Unfortunately, the machine went out of control and ruined the food reserved for the grasshoppers. Now Hopper and his insect friends demand twice as much food by the end of the season! Feeling responsible, Flik hatched a plan to save Ant Island, which involved going out into the world to gather some forces. After listening to the plan, Queen Atta decided to let Flik go on his adventure, hoping it would keep him occupied long enough so the colony could meet the quota without interruption.

A Bug's Life for the Nintendo 64 is based on Disney's and Pixar Studios' 1998 computer animated movie of the same name. Players take control of Flik as he explores the surroundings outside of his colony. The journey spans a total of fifteen levels divided into five acts, with every third stage involving a confrontation with a boss character (Thumper, Bird, Thud the Horsefly, Molt and Hopper).

Each level is filled with mean-spirited insects hovering in the air or crawling on the ground, including grubs, flies, mosquitoes and mites! Fortunately, Flik has an unlimited supply of berries to toss, which can be powered-up, and he can also perform a butt-bounce to defeat enemies. Besides the assortment of creatures to deal with, Flik will need to complete certain objectives, such as reaching the entrance to the ant colony or making friends with some of the characters from the film.

The game also offers puzzle-solving elements that involve using seeds found along the ground. These seeds can then "grow" into useful plants to help Flik in his adventure. By collecting different seed tokens, you can influence what type of plant grows from the seed, such as platforms to jump on, dandelions to help Flik fly, or even shooting plants to eliminate enemies! Exclusive to the Nintendo 64 version is the Challenge Mode, which has Flik facing sixty challenges to test how fast he can perform certain actions.

For example, Flik may have to find a certain number of grain tokens within thirty seconds or run to the ant colony in an even faster time. Five challenges are immediately available, but to open up the rest you'll need to collect all of the following on a level: Grain Tokens, Enemy Tokens (by defeating all enemies) and FLIK tokens (by spelling out the name Flik). A Bug's Life lets you save challenge performances and level progress with the Controller Pak, or you can snap in a Rumble Pak for vibration feedback!

Bug's Life (Nintendo 64, 1999)