Besides the colony of Sim Ant and the pillbug protaganist of Bugdom, the video game world has a shortage of insect heroes. Most people regard bugs as obnoxious annoyances deserving of annihilation, and games have followed suit, from Stanley Bugman's Donkey Kong 3 to the Mario Paint minigame Flyswatter. The Amazing Adventures of Mr. F. Lea is an exception to all of this entymological hatred. The hero, the titular Mr. F. Lea, is a charming tophatted flea who must hop on as many dogs' backs as he can, presumably to drain them of their blood and give them all lyme disease. The game plays out on four different types of screens for each level, each with slightly different gameplay. The lawnmower stage is basically frogger, with lawnmowers replacing freeway traffic, and dogs' backs replacing the lilypads of frogger. The Dog Hollow stage is a repurposed Donkey Kong, Dogs' Tails is sort of a more vertical Jungle Hunt, and Dogs' backs involves hopping up a mountain to the William Tell Overture. Though none of these stages are particularly original by themselves, together they create a refreshingly different and varied game experience. Control is responsive and smooth, graphics are detailed and surprisingly cute, and the sound is also good, offering up catchy electronic versions of classic tunes. While The Amazing Adventures of Mr. F. Lea is derivative bordering on plagiaristic, it's still quite fun, and deserves more than to be wiped out by the bugspray of time.
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