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Naughty Bear
Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: A2M (Artificial Mind and Movement)
Genre: Action
Release Date: Junes 29, 2010
Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360
ESRB: T - Teen
Reviewer: Eric
No more than a week has passed and Naughty Bear is getting bad press. Naughty
Bear never tried to be a big budget title or a game that can compare to Mass
Effect 2 or Red Dead Redemption. This sort of game was released to be fun and a
budget title. I’m sorry but Naughty Bear is an awesome game so fucking deal with
it…but I’ll tell you why I guess.
Rooting for the underdog is always so satisfying. Naughty Bear is a video game,
about a psychopathic teddy bear that none of the other teddy bears like. Our
friend Naughty Bear is naughty and he does real naughty things. When Naughty
Bear doesn’t get invited to a birthday party he gets pissed and when Naughty
Bear gets pissed shit starts to hit the fan, real bad.
Naughty Bear is half stealth and half action. You can pretty much just run
around killing the other bears and then the other bears that are summoned if one
teddy bear can make a phone call in time. If that isn’t striking your fancy then
hide in the bushes or in lockers/cabinets and kill the other teddy bears without
anyone noticing.
If you thought Assassin’s Creed was bad with stealth then you might want to skip
on Naughty Bear. You can literally jump out, scare a bear and attack another,
then jump right back into the bushes without anything really coming after you.
Here and there somebody will go in and strike at you once, but when you move
over a little they’ll leave and get scared, giving you more points then. I’ve
gone to over look this factor but I can see how this is a deal breaker.
Every stage builds off of the first one. All of the stages also have side
missions, which at first I thought you didn’t have to worry about. This is not
true since you have to earn a higher naughty ranking to unlock more in the game,
like stages. For the most part the island stays the same, it just gets bigger
and bigger (not too big though). Simple things will change and there are points
where the army comes in, giving you some nice tent structures to look at. When I
noticed this in the game, right away I thought of an N64 game.
The N64 aspect stays true with the games graphics. Naughty Bear at best looks
like a last generation N64 game. For the price tag you really can’t complain
since some games will come out at full price and they just plain old look bad.
Naughty Bear has this certain charm to it and when you see Naughty Bear killing
the other bears, fluff flying every where, you’ll get a smile on your face and
realize that the game would not have been as charming with Uncharted or Alan
Wake graphics.
Where the graphics take a journey to the past the audio stays in present time.
The in-game voice from our storyteller reminds me of a children’s movie. The
voice is almost dead-on with those sort of movies we use to watch when we were
crawling around in the kitchen.
The games music isn’t a shining moment in gaming history though. Naughty Bear
could have had better music, maybe more in the likes of an old children’s movie,
but how many people are going to care when they are smashing a bears head in a
car door? Well I noticed and it isn’t the best. The games sound effects though
are really good. God I love throwing a bear in fire, brings music to my ears.
Naughty Bear does have some multiplayer modes. I had some fun online but I did
run into some problems with the Playstation 3 version. I got booted off a few
times and then there were problems where I couldn’t find anybody to play with.
Hopefully if word of mouth catches on we can all get online and let the fluff
fly in Naughty Bear.
If you are having problems online then there is no need to worry. There is
enough to do offline with Naughty Bear. You can go back to stages and earn the
highest rankings or even do some of special challenges like throwing a certain
teddy bear into the fire and so forth.
Final Verdict
Naughty Bear has been getting bad press and I don’t know why. Yes if you compare
this game to a modern marvel then its going to look a bit stale. This is the
sort of game you can put on and play for an hour or two and enjoy yourself
enough to get a smile on your face. At the cheaper price and everything on this
disc I would have to recommend this title.
Rating Breakdown
Gameplay: 7 out of 10
+ Simple to play and a lot of fun when you start de-fluffing
those bears.
- Confused camera in corners and some gamers won’t be amused
by its charm.
Story: 9 out of 10
+ A bear that gets pissed off and goes ape shit? That’s
awesome!
- Sort of slacks at a few points honestly.
Graphics: 7 out of 10
+ Good looking N64 game with some great kill sequences.
- It is an N64 game really and that was how old ago?
Audio: 7 out of 10
+ The announcer is funny to the very end.
- The music and sound effects slack in this whole mix of
great announcer mix.
Replay Value: 5 out of 10
+ There is a lot to do when you beat the main quest…
- Just wish the online mode was better with more gamers
online.
Overall
7 out of 10
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