Write-Up
Write-Up:
If you’re like me, when you heard of the game Naughty Bear, you thought, is that anything like Pedo Bear? Well kind of I guess. Released on June 29th for the Xbox 360 and PS3, Artificial Mind and Movement and 505 Games’ latest Action Adventure title gives us something we certainly haven’t seen before in a video game. While along the same lines as perhaps, Fairytale Fights, Naughty Bear has you hacking and slashing a crap-load of teddy bears replacing blood and gore with stuffing and stitches, and should put a smile on your face, at least the first few times you come up with creative ways to decimate your enemies. But the enjoyment is very short-lived, as things get pretty stale after the first hour or so. Currently at the list price of $50, here’s Naughty Bear.
There actually isn’t really too much of a story in the game. Basically you play as social outcast, Naughty Bear, living on a tropical island with a bunch of other fluffy bears, and everyone and their mom hates you, and you want nothing more than to be friends with everyone. Beyond that, there isn’t too much to it and there is no story progression. There are 7 levels and each are kind of episodic, or rather, they don’t’ tell an entire story, they just portray events in Naughty’s life, with no real conclusion after you’ve completed them. It’s really a shame, because the ground was set for a truly wonderful story, it just for one reason or another wasn’t implemented.
Naughty Bear is actually an extremely short game if you want to get through the episodic story. There is only 7 levels spread out over only 4 zones that are all interconnected. Each level has 5 different challenges giving you a total of 35 different missions, all spread over those same 4 zones, though you only need to complete a very small number of them before you see the games ending cinematic. I probably only spent about 5 hours playing before I reached this point. As you play, you’re rated on your performance with bronze, silver, gold and platinum trophies, and upon collecting a certain number of each, additional challenges and levels will become unlocked for you.
Thankfully, the game has a built-in multiplayer… Or does it? At the time of this review, I was unable to connect to a single multiplayer match, nor host one myself. After doing some research on the Internet, it appears as though this problem is not unique to me and many people can’t play any multiplayer games. I’ve read people trying 100 times and getting into a match a mere 4 times. They say it’s super fun once you get in, but I’ve got to imagine they’re extremely biased having just dropped 50 bucks for a game and spending hours to get into a match, it better appear to be god damned fun. Well, if you’re lucky enough to get into a game, you have a few game types that actually look interesting, but again you’re forced to play the same 4 levels from the campaign. Blah.
In addition to not being able to even get into a game, the multiplayer lobby is simply terrible. There is no count-down timer, so you are literally forced to wait for the room to fill with players, then wait for each to hit the ready button, and if even one of them is AFK, which they ALWAYS are, you have to sit and wait for them to get back. This multiplayer was clearly tacked on as an afterthought to sell more copies. On top of all this, the damn game freezes ALL THE TIME. I had to reboot my 360 every hour or so playing through this.
At least the game looks fun right? Who doesn’t like running around with a machete stabbing the stuffing out of mean little teddy bears? Well, OK, it is pretty fun to come up with clever ways to take out your enemies, but it gets stale pretty quickly. This is more of an arcade game than an action game, as the objective is to score as many points as possible by doing naughty things, be it killing bears, destroying cakes or scaring the crap out of everyone. Each of the 7 levels offer you a new weapon which spices things up a little bit, but the sub-levels have you simply replaying the game just a little differently each time. In one mission you may have to score x amount of points by simply scaring the bears, one may have you hide and not be seen the entire match, and the other may be a speed run. But it’s always the exact same levels and the exact same enemies!
Combat consists of simply mashing the X button over and over until you are able to pull off a fatality, which is entertaining the first few times you see it, but each weapon only has a single fatality animation. There is just very little variety in this entire game. On top of that, the camera is terrible, unless of course you’re out in the open, but the bears always hide inside, and the second you get anywhere remotely close to a building it goes haywire.
So, while the game-play is terribly repetitious, at least there are some goals that are kind of difficult that you can waste your time on. To unlock all of the levels you’ll need to obtain a ton of gold trophies, which is going to take you some patience. Along with the level unlocks, there are also costumes that spice things up, giving you different statistics per costume allowing you to customize your bear if you will for the particular mission.
At least Naughty Bear has one saving grace. The game’s presentation is pretty good. The graphics are kind of cartoony and look pretty decent, but the game’s death animations are awesome and really funny. Hell, if you scare a bear enough he’ll go insane and kill himself with whatever weapon he’s currently carrying. If another bear sees that happen, he may do the same. That’s just awesome. Unfortunately though, there is only a single animation and single sound effect for scaring things. It’s always the same BOOO and the same arms in the air. That could have been greatly improved upon considering how often you have to use it.
The game’s music is very reminiscent of horror movies of our past which is interesting and the games sound effects are funny at times, but the real star of the presentation is the voice acting of the Narrator, who is in turn the only acted voice in the game. The way he sets up Naughty Bear for all of his devious deeds is hilarious and it feels good to have him cheer you on as you beat the snot out of the enemies.
Now, it’s not like me to give a really bad review, because for the most part, I really enjoy playing games and think most games are actually pretty good, but this one has some serious flaws to it. I guess I feel this title would have been better suited as an Xbox Live Downloadable game than a feature length $50 title. While it does have the inner workings to be a great cult classic, it still needs a lot of work for me to recommend it at its current price. If they fix the multiplayer it might merit being picked up in the bargain bin a few weeks from now, assuming of course anyone is still even trying to play it online at that point. I know a lot of you said the game looked amazing from my game-play videos, what are your thoughts now? Leave your questions and comments below!
Developer: Artificial Mind and Movement
Publisher: 505 Games
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3
Price: $49.99
Review Video: http://www.youtube.com/ZeitgeistReview
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ZeitgeistReview
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**This title was provided to me free of charge from the publisher to review for you.
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