pwnophobia
07-16-2010, 10:02 AM
Title: Naughty Bear
Platform: XBOX 360 / PS3
Platform Reviewed: XBOX 360
Developer: A2M (http://a2m.com/)
Publisher: 505 Games (http://505games.com)
MSRP: $49.99
Writer: Adam 'pwnophobia' Cogswell
Naughty Bear Review
I promised you a review, can I go back to Street Fighter now?
Before this whole review gets under way I have to disclose something to everyone. If you have read any other Naughty Bear reviews or tweets you may have noticed that some reviewers didn't/couldn't finish the game. While I started playing with the intention to finish I quickly found out that it was far too frustrating to even attempt. I put more hours into two sub chapters (of which each chapter has 4) trying to bring you the best review I could but soon realized that I couldn't do it alone. I enlisted the help of my 15 year old brother and after three hair pulling, beer chugging nights, he and I decided to call it quits. No minors drank during the course of this review.
I'm sure I don't have to explain to you who Naughty Bear is or what Naughty Bear is about due to barrage of videos that I pelted the front page with. However, after playing through 60% of the game, I realized that only one or two of the videos had anything to do with the game. You don't turn into Jaws or crawl through TVs, you just do the same thing for 7 Chapters: Kill bears and collect points. The premise of the game is that Naughty didn't get invited to a birthday party and the voice in his head (the narrator) tells him to go kill the bears of the island. Without any coaching you're sent off to the staging area and then the main island.
http://evavhost.com/i/press/nb1.jpg
Each level, no matter the challenge, looks and plays near identically. You're given an objective to collect a certain number of points before you can move on to the next zone. Every time you commit some kind of naughty act such as, but not limited to: scaring a bear, killing a bear, sabotaging something, shooting out a window, or setting a trap your point modifier will increase. Grab a power-up to freeze the modifier in place and kill a bear to get 75x the amount of points so you can move to the next zone. So now you're running around the island trying to set traps to kill bears for seven chapters, you can imagine how repetitive and mindless this could get after two chapters.
Before I completely rip into that aspect I do want to mention that ALL of the death animations are brutal. If you can grab an axe and beat a bear enough to get the kill trigger to appear you'll turn him around, he'll beg, and you'll plunge your axe into his skull. With a smirk, Naughty will put his foot on the bears head and pull the axe out. Stuffing is supposed to fly every where, like blood, but it's fairly minimal. After you use each weapon once and see each kill animation, you've experienced all the game has to offer. No weapon out-performs any other leaving the Kill-Cam animation the only distinguishing feature between them, so once you've used one weapon you've used them all. There is no reason to continue playing except to collect points and go higher up the leader board, which I was at least number five world wide without even trying. If you want to experience the different animations I would suggest hitting YouTube so you can vicariously kill a bear with a 5-iron.
http://evavhost.com/i/press/nb2.jpg
Now that you've read the only thing the game does right, we'll get back to game play. Combat is done in your normal "spam X until a trigger pops up to kill" fashion, traps are laid by pressing a button and the rest of the time you're fighting the camera. Probably the worst and most valuable aspect of this game is the camera. It's fixed on Naughty and spins around him in no logical order. If you're used to running from a group of enemies while being able to look behind you while using the map to navigate, forget it. Any time you try to turn the camera it'll suddenly jolt in another direction because it tries to auto-correct based on where you are in relation to the zone edges. It is so frustrating that you'll eventually say "screw this" and instead stop fighting the camera to hide in the bushes until you can see an opportunity to strike.
Besides the narrator telling you where to go or what to do you've got a green or red arrow at your feet. Since Naughty is always moving and the camera can't seem to find the right angle, you'll rarely see this arrow. A green arrow is to lead you to your next objective while the red is showing you a world event, like a bear calling for help that you need to stop. How am I supposed to know which way to go when the arrow is hidden constantly? You cannot see the arrow while hiding in a bush or standing behind a wall so if you've got ten seconds left to stop a bear you'll have no idea where to go because you can't see which way TO go! You can try and guestimate which bear is what based on the mini map, where bears are shown as red dots, but more times than not you'll be fighting the camera to find the bear even though the mini map says you are next to him.
http://evavhost.com/i/press/nb3.jpg
Stealth is an absolute joke because of enemy AI. Any time you hide in a bush it is like Naughty gained super natural stealth ability. You could have the entire island chasing you down only to run into some bushes and they'll look around like you jumped dimensions. Now the enemy bears will start to walk about looking for you but are confined to the road and houses, meaning the bush is "safe". You can do whatever you want in a bush and the bears will have no idea where it is coming from. Got a gun? Great! Just shoot at any of the bears, if you can somehow finagle the controls to work properly, until you've gained enough points to get back to the staging area and complete the mission. If you don't have a gun but are trying not to get hit or seen, you're out of luck. As soon as you leave the bushes all of the bears lock on to you and follow you around the world map until you 'jump' into another bush.
Honestly, I could rant for another three or four paragraphs about graphical glitches, bear AI, broken multiplayer (which I couldn't even get a game to start), weapons and terrible controls but I think you get the idea. I fell victim to a barrage of videos from a game that showed me nothing and paid for it dearly. I had a few friends who watched the videos ask me, "How was Naughty Bear? It looked interesting, should I Game Fly it?" To which I respond: "Only if you enjoy eating your controller." If you want something COMPLETELY mindless and stupid to do for a few hours, or if you want a great game for target practice, then pick up Naughty Bear. Other than that, spend your $50 on something worthwhile like SSFIV (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111693).
Score: 1.5 out of 5
http://evavhost.com/public/15.gif
The Good Brutal death animations.
The Bad Graphical glitches when zoning. A directional arrow at your feet that can be hidden by world objects. No distinguishing features between weapons. Repetitive gameplay that loses its appeal after a few minutes. Broken multiplayer.
The Ugly Trying to play a stealth mission only to be seen as soon as you zone.
Platform: XBOX 360 / PS3
Platform Reviewed: XBOX 360
Developer: A2M (http://a2m.com/)
Publisher: 505 Games (http://505games.com)
MSRP: $49.99
Writer: Adam 'pwnophobia' Cogswell
Naughty Bear Review
I promised you a review, can I go back to Street Fighter now?
Before this whole review gets under way I have to disclose something to everyone. If you have read any other Naughty Bear reviews or tweets you may have noticed that some reviewers didn't/couldn't finish the game. While I started playing with the intention to finish I quickly found out that it was far too frustrating to even attempt. I put more hours into two sub chapters (of which each chapter has 4) trying to bring you the best review I could but soon realized that I couldn't do it alone. I enlisted the help of my 15 year old brother and after three hair pulling, beer chugging nights, he and I decided to call it quits. No minors drank during the course of this review.
I'm sure I don't have to explain to you who Naughty Bear is or what Naughty Bear is about due to barrage of videos that I pelted the front page with. However, after playing through 60% of the game, I realized that only one or two of the videos had anything to do with the game. You don't turn into Jaws or crawl through TVs, you just do the same thing for 7 Chapters: Kill bears and collect points. The premise of the game is that Naughty didn't get invited to a birthday party and the voice in his head (the narrator) tells him to go kill the bears of the island. Without any coaching you're sent off to the staging area and then the main island.
http://evavhost.com/i/press/nb1.jpg
Each level, no matter the challenge, looks and plays near identically. You're given an objective to collect a certain number of points before you can move on to the next zone. Every time you commit some kind of naughty act such as, but not limited to: scaring a bear, killing a bear, sabotaging something, shooting out a window, or setting a trap your point modifier will increase. Grab a power-up to freeze the modifier in place and kill a bear to get 75x the amount of points so you can move to the next zone. So now you're running around the island trying to set traps to kill bears for seven chapters, you can imagine how repetitive and mindless this could get after two chapters.
Before I completely rip into that aspect I do want to mention that ALL of the death animations are brutal. If you can grab an axe and beat a bear enough to get the kill trigger to appear you'll turn him around, he'll beg, and you'll plunge your axe into his skull. With a smirk, Naughty will put his foot on the bears head and pull the axe out. Stuffing is supposed to fly every where, like blood, but it's fairly minimal. After you use each weapon once and see each kill animation, you've experienced all the game has to offer. No weapon out-performs any other leaving the Kill-Cam animation the only distinguishing feature between them, so once you've used one weapon you've used them all. There is no reason to continue playing except to collect points and go higher up the leader board, which I was at least number five world wide without even trying. If you want to experience the different animations I would suggest hitting YouTube so you can vicariously kill a bear with a 5-iron.
http://evavhost.com/i/press/nb2.jpg
Now that you've read the only thing the game does right, we'll get back to game play. Combat is done in your normal "spam X until a trigger pops up to kill" fashion, traps are laid by pressing a button and the rest of the time you're fighting the camera. Probably the worst and most valuable aspect of this game is the camera. It's fixed on Naughty and spins around him in no logical order. If you're used to running from a group of enemies while being able to look behind you while using the map to navigate, forget it. Any time you try to turn the camera it'll suddenly jolt in another direction because it tries to auto-correct based on where you are in relation to the zone edges. It is so frustrating that you'll eventually say "screw this" and instead stop fighting the camera to hide in the bushes until you can see an opportunity to strike.
Besides the narrator telling you where to go or what to do you've got a green or red arrow at your feet. Since Naughty is always moving and the camera can't seem to find the right angle, you'll rarely see this arrow. A green arrow is to lead you to your next objective while the red is showing you a world event, like a bear calling for help that you need to stop. How am I supposed to know which way to go when the arrow is hidden constantly? You cannot see the arrow while hiding in a bush or standing behind a wall so if you've got ten seconds left to stop a bear you'll have no idea where to go because you can't see which way TO go! You can try and guestimate which bear is what based on the mini map, where bears are shown as red dots, but more times than not you'll be fighting the camera to find the bear even though the mini map says you are next to him.
http://evavhost.com/i/press/nb3.jpg
Stealth is an absolute joke because of enemy AI. Any time you hide in a bush it is like Naughty gained super natural stealth ability. You could have the entire island chasing you down only to run into some bushes and they'll look around like you jumped dimensions. Now the enemy bears will start to walk about looking for you but are confined to the road and houses, meaning the bush is "safe". You can do whatever you want in a bush and the bears will have no idea where it is coming from. Got a gun? Great! Just shoot at any of the bears, if you can somehow finagle the controls to work properly, until you've gained enough points to get back to the staging area and complete the mission. If you don't have a gun but are trying not to get hit or seen, you're out of luck. As soon as you leave the bushes all of the bears lock on to you and follow you around the world map until you 'jump' into another bush.
Honestly, I could rant for another three or four paragraphs about graphical glitches, bear AI, broken multiplayer (which I couldn't even get a game to start), weapons and terrible controls but I think you get the idea. I fell victim to a barrage of videos from a game that showed me nothing and paid for it dearly. I had a few friends who watched the videos ask me, "How was Naughty Bear? It looked interesting, should I Game Fly it?" To which I respond: "Only if you enjoy eating your controller." If you want something COMPLETELY mindless and stupid to do for a few hours, or if you want a great game for target practice, then pick up Naughty Bear. Other than that, spend your $50 on something worthwhile like SSFIV (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111693).
Score: 1.5 out of 5
http://evavhost.com/public/15.gif
The Good Brutal death animations.
The Bad Graphical glitches when zoning. A directional arrow at your feet that can be hidden by world objects. No distinguishing features between weapons. Repetitive gameplay that loses its appeal after a few minutes. Broken multiplayer.
The Ugly Trying to play a stealth mission only to be seen as soon as you zone.