[rokbox title=”Transformers: War for Cybertron Review” thumb=”http://www.geeksofgaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/naughty-bear-review.jpg” size=”854 505″ ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrhLRqcsLXQ&hd=1&autoplay=1[/rokbox]
Naughty Bear was developed by Artificial Mind and Movement, who created WET, Scene It, Indiana Jones: Staff of Kings, Iron Man, Twilight: Scene It, High School Musical, and Get on Da Mic. Yeah, I know those games don’t exactly titillate the senses… but maybe Naughty Bear will be the first breakout game for the company?
You play as Naughty Bear who is an outcast to all the rest of the bears on the island. Naughty lives on the outskirts of the place by his lonesome and is usually excluded from all Bear functions. In this particular case a Bear named Daddles is having a birthday party, while Naughty isn’t invited he did make a present for Daddles in the hopes that they could be friends. On the way to the party Naughty’s present is laughed at and he returns back home in shame. That shame however soon turns to murderous rage, as he goes out on a bear murdering rampage.
This is about all you need to know in the story department, basically Naughty Bear consists of slaughtering the bear citizens who have wronged him. In each episode there will be a new reason for Naughty to exterminate the bear population. Like a bear running for Mayor with the promise of ejecting Naughty from the Island, to killing off the Army because they’ve placed Spy-camera birds all around the village. So you’ll basically need a sense of humor to even step foot in the realm of Naughty Bear.
Yet beyond a sense of humor you will most definitely have to call forth the inner Jason Vorhees inside you. Because that is all that this game really is about, murdering bears in the most violent ways possible. And you know what? That portion of the game is actually… fun. When you’re running around slamming axes into bears heads, or burying their face into fire pits. This is where the game shines the most, it’s like a less bloody version of Manhunt.
The problems arise in a variety of ways that simply mar the fun of the game, the #1 issue would be that the performance in the game is just atrocious. During most levels you’ll experience heavy frame rate drops. This is most apparent whenever the action screens appear to show what another bear is doing. That’s not even mentioning the frame rate skip every time a bridge comes down at the end of a level. The second utmost problem would have to be with the basic camera control scheme, most of the time the camera will obstruct your view and force you to move it manually. Unless it is during one of the contextual scenes indoors, in which you will not be able to see anything until the kill is completed.
The third problem comes from Artificial Intelligence, during my game play experience I noticed that the other bears are just outright idiots. They can be right in front of Naughty and he can just jump into a bush and be completely invisible to their eyes instantly. At other times he’ll be bashing them in the back of the head and they’ll just stand there like nothing happened. Which makes the game incredibly easy in earlier levels, but in later levels they introduce special bears who are pretty much the same but take much more damage.
The final problem directly involves fighting the other bears, because most of the time you’ll end up attacking nothing but air. The lack of some kind of lock-on option for the opponent you’re trying to finish off is definitely annoying. Especially when you get to the portion where you’re fighting a series of uzi toting army bears, you’ll end up missing hits due to the performance lag, the camera, and not being able to fully position yourself to stay on a target. Which can quickly turn things into an utter disaster for Naughty.
In the graphical department the execution animations are deadly and to the point, there are some that could have used a bit more brutality. But most of them prove that Naughty has no love for these bears, and will eviscerate them in the most destructive fashion possible. The actual problem with the game comes from the level design, or lack thereof . Other than a few changes to the scale of morning, evening, and night… you’ll pretty much be fighting in the same little village over… and over… and over again. There seems to be a total lack of variety in the environments here, and things will start to get boring very quickly.
I’ll also tell you my personal gripe and what almost made me cut the game off in about an hour or so. It’s the announcer that you have to hear through the entire game. He’s the voice that’s inside of Naughty Bear’s head, and he’ll spout out the ridiculous names for every kill… every single time you do one. Not only is it annoying after the first five minutes, it’s even more annoying after you realize he’s doing it half-heartedly. To make things even more awkward in the sound design, most of the music sounds like it belongs in a Monkey Island game. I looked around in anticipation hoping that Guybrush Threepwood would hop out and tell me a hilarious joke… but it never came to fruition.
In a Nutshell this game could have really been fun, in fact I found it to be fun in the first two episodes. Then I realized that it is only 7 episodes long, and to hide the fact that it is so short… it instead forces you to complete challenges in the same levels you’ve completed in different ways just to unlock the next episode. So it makes you play through stuff that you’d rather have done after beating a game, instead of just letting you reach the end and completing those tasks at your own discretion.
I wouldn’t even complain so much about this game if it wasn’t a fifty dollar title, this is actually a game that should have come out as a download on PSN or Xbox Live. I’d never recommend this as a buy to anyone, unless you’re really… really hard up for playing a game similar to Manhunt. I also can’t advise renting this in its current state. Because bugs plague this game the entire way through and it destroys the fun. Which goes along with the four multi-player modes, which are pretty basic and uneventful. So this game receives a D- from Half-Ass Gaming, and please don’t feed the bears.
