Naught Bear Review (PS3)

Chris Nitz

July 13, 2010

aughty Bear is one of those games that needed quite a few trailers to get their potential buyers stoked. The advertising worked. Movies highlighting crazy antics, cutesy presentation, and a morbid idea of butchering stuffed animals ran rampant on the Internet. Yet, those trailers could prepare nobody for the stuffing abomination that they game would really be.

Naughty Bear starts out with a cute, yet violent premise. A bunch of happy-go-lucky teddy bears are having parties and enjoying life in their own little world. This all comes to a white fluff filled end when Naughty Bear somehow finds himself on the exclusion list from all these happy-time events.

Naughty Bear

Metacritic score: 42

Released: June 29, 2010

Publisher: 505 Games

Developer: Artificial Mind & Movement

Naughty Bear has some serious anger issues: getting the shaft on these parties makes for one really upset bear. Retribution is all that Naughty Bear sees.

How does Naughty Bear go about getting his sweet satisfaction? He uses everything he can to destroy his foes. Cars, cake mixers, turn tables, grills, bear traps, machetes, guns, and toilets are just the start of the murderous objects at Naughty's disposal. The island is Naughty's killer playground. Dexter would be impressed with all the ways there are to dispose of inferior Bears.

That is all you need to know. The game has no real story line what so ever. The intro movie is all you really get in the way of substance here. If you think there is a great story line, you might as well turn around now as Naughty Bear is a very shallow game.

That shallow feeling carries over to the presentation as well. Low polygon counts, bad attention to detail, and a whole lot of graphical copy/paste/repeat happen in this game. First, the game looks like something that rocked screens five years ago. Close-up views yield bland textures while the world is displayed in basic colors. The music carries a fun and happy feel, yet it is replayed over and over and over again. This might be forgivable if it were not for the outrageously shallow story.

The only shining point of the game is the fear that the tormented bears show. Naughty Bear is all about scaring the bejesus out of all the other happy bears. This fear is very well translated by facial expressions, fleeing at the very sight of Naughty, trying to escape the island, bears barricading themselves into rooms, and the nonstop suicidal tendencies that become apparent after a bear just can't handle the fear anymore. The emotion that the bears show in this game is something many RPG's strive for, but often fall flat on.

There is a fair bit to do in Naughty Bear. Leaderboard addicts can work to take the top spot with their naughty scores. It takes a bit of skill to boot gamers from this throne as well. You will be watching scare multiplies, finding items to freeze that scare the multiplier from ticking down, and learning new devious ways to add points to the score will keep score addicts playing again and again.

Different challenges will also appeal to many play styles. Beating one challenge will open up another challenge. Challenges are mostly composed of slaughtering every bear on the island. Some challenges setup fun scenarios like having to get every bear to meet the stuffing maker without having Naughty lay a hand on them.

While poor visuals, lack of a real story, or even the limited amounts of scenery are forgivable, the shoddy camera and controls are not. Naughty Bear is all about tormenting and butchering other bears. Yet, you will fight the camera more than wrecking havoc on the island. I died more than once by ninja bears due to them running around and the controls being suck-tack-ular. When the game is already hurting in so many other places, screwing up on camera and controls put this game into an immediate state of crap.

Let's take a moment here and look at exactly what this game is about. This is not a game you should even consider picking up for your kids. Naughty Bear is all about unadulterated violence. You might be killing bears in some sort of cute and humorous setting, but the ways in which Naughty Bear presents these butchering ways has a very big hint of outrageous anger and violence. Grand Theft Auto may look more realistic and portray many graphical taboos, but Naughty Bear wraps them up in a cute presentation and then kicks those murderous taboos into overdrive.

Naughty Bear started with a fun idea, but fell flat on its face when it left the drawing board. Maybe the game testers were all sipping some good Koolaid while playing as that is the only way this game could be worth the time and effort to play. Just stay off Bear Island if you can. If you are bound and determined to make a go of this game, rent it as the novelty wears off after the first 15 minutes.