If you go down to the woods today, prepare to be disappointed. What could have been a great game has unfortunately turned out to be rather poor and lacking real fun. Meet naughty bear, he really isn’t happy with his fellow bears and so decides to go on a kill crazy rampage. He has his reasons though, unlike all the other bears he does not receive an invite to daddle’s birthday party. Poor naughty bear even goes to the trouble of crafting a special gift for daddle’s, however on the way over two other bears mock naughty bear and his gift.. naughty bear then skulks off back home to plot revenge on the inhabitants of the island. And that’s really how it goes, what follows is a lot of carnage ..stuffing will fly but sadly that’s about all.
The first thing that I noticed about the game was the overly dated look, though I was playing it on the playstation 3 it looked like a playstation 2 game. Games in general don’t have to look good for me to enjoy them but a more polished look does inspire me to play longer, Naughty Bear made me do the opposite. The main character of the bear does have a certain charm, he doesn’t talk instead an unseen narrator spins the yarn in the style of a slightly morbid children’s television show. Another issue I found to really hamper the pace of the game was the camera, normally a slightly turbulent camera is not a deal breaker in a game but the camera here will hang behind walls and doors causing you to have to keep centring it again and if you are lucky an enemy bear won’t attack.
The cartoon violence was for the most part quite funny at times but once I got about an hour into the game it really started to feel really repetitive to the point of me putting the controller down and turning the game off. The naughty points system is quite good and it lets you upgrade your bear to use different looks and weapons but again it’s something that only adds a little more lifespan to the game that in the end makes very little difference. Each level in the game world plays the same, find the bears and dispatch them ..maybe scare them first but inevitably the bears must die. Like I said the weapons do add a little spice and naughty bear has many weapons at his disposal including knives and guns.
Unfortunately the cartoon look just hasn’t been met to the standard you would expect from a nextgen console, I expected the developers would easily put together some great lush environments that were both clever and humorous instead they are drab and flat. The controls like the camera are at times very clunky and really drag the flow of the game down to a snail’s pace. For such a game with a lack of gloss to it the frame rate has issues especially when switching between areas of the map. Some are so bad it can result in an actual game freeze and since there is no real checkpoint system in place you will get very frustrated from having to start over again and that in itself might well be enough to make you either turn the game off or toss your controller at the television.
It may seem like all I’m pointing at are the negative aspects of the game but there really are very few redeeming features I can mention. At times there can be what feels like a burst of creativity but it’s so short lived that it will quickly be forgotten. When I have to point out the main menu screen as a positive part of the games design then it’s clear that said game has serious issues. The initial story of Naughty Bear is quite clever and promises a whole lot of laughs and adventure coated in a twisted little murder romp, but none of those promises are met ..apart for the murder of course. Originally I was very excited about the game but upon playing I have to do something I have never done before, and that’s to seriously recommend people not to buy Naughty Bear. As a rental the game might work, its short lived and it’s different but that’s really all.
Like any game there is always someone out there who will enjoy it no matter how bad others think it is and normally I always see something positive in an otherwise mediocre game so maybe it will appeal to someone. In a nutshell Naughty Bear is built in the style of games like Manhunt and Hitman but with bears and cartoon violence, if you like the idea of running around scaring and knocking the stuffing out of your fellow bears then this “might” be the game for you. Otherwise Naughty Bear really doesn’t deliver as a retail released console game, the graphics and sloppy game mechanics are the main choking point but there are too many other problems that stop it from ever becoming a game I would recommend. And so for my final score, I tried to enjoy Naughty Bear and I gave it a few chances to impress but any time I felt like I was having fun something else cropped up to ultimately frustrate and annoy until I eventually quit – Naughty Bear is getting a 4 out of 10. I did enjoy the narration and it was funny at times but even with the added DLC it’s just not enough to keep you going back for more.
