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Naughty Bear Review for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Naughty Bear Review for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Naughty Execution

Leading to the release of Naughty Bear, the game’s PR machine was hitting on all cylinders. The slew of trailers being released were dark, humorous, and seemingly promised what would be a delightful, yet sadistic, adventure involving extreme bear-on-bear violence. While these trailers had me looking forward to the title, there was still a small amount of doubt in the back of my mind telling me not to get too excited. Now that I’ve had a chance to actually play Naughty Bear, the only thing the back of my mind is telling me is “I told you so.”

Naughty Bear screenshot

For those who may be unaware, the actual premise behind Naughty Bear is a good one. Take one part Care Bears and one part Manhunt, then mix those together with a scoring system and you’ve got Naughty Bear. The titular character, Naughty, resides on an island with many other bear inhabitants who despise him and treat him poorly for seemingly no reason. That is, until he eventually grows tired of being ridiculed and decides to take out all his pent up aggression on those who have scorned him. What results is a series of episodes that give Naughty the chance to even the score with all his nasty neighbors.

Unfortunately, while this may sound great, there is not enough variety in the missions or gameplay to sustain interest throughout the entire experience. The gameplay is straightforward, giving you points based on how frightened you can make the other bears and how grizzly you can make their deaths. This involves stalking around the same few locales, setting traps, disabling phones, destroying escape vehicles, and slaughtering all the, hopefully, unsuspecting bears.

Traps, such as mines and bear traps, will temporarily incapacitate your enemy, allowing you to sneak up and scare them. This is accomplished by using the Boo button. Yes, there is such a thing. Pressing this button will have Naughty shout Boo in a frightening manner, further scaring your target and any nearby bears witnessing the event. If you can manage to scare a bear enough, you will eventually get the option to kill it using fright instead of weapons. When this occurs, the bear will use whatever weapon is in its hands to commit suicide, scoring you more points than you’d get from taking it out the more old fashioned way. There are other ways to insight fear, like jumping out of closets or disabling something and spooking whoever comes to investigate. However, the options are still limited and it can be difficult to remain incognito when there are several bears around.

Naughty Bear screenshot

If you can’t manage to remain hidden, a more direct approach may be required. You’ll have your choice between several melee weapons and a few guns. While you’ll have access to knives, baseball bats, axes, and a few other unsavory tools of pain, each performs identically. No matter which melee weapon you choose, combat is resigned to just tapping a button to swing away at a bear until an indicator flashes, letting you know you can finally execute your foe. Each weapon has its own unique execution scene, however, these too get old fast.

Every episode in Naughty Bear starts off with a brief cinematic, which essentially always boil down to “all the bears hate you so it’s time to kill them all.” After these, you are given an objective (killing bears) that needs to be completed in order to progress. Successfully passing episodes can unlock new costumes, new episodes and sub-episodes, and multiplayer bonuses for Naughty.

Naughty Bear screenshot

Sub-episodes attempt to add variety to the mix by functioning differently than the normal episodes. These sub-episodes give players a secondary objective to complete or constraint they need to adhere to while they are exterminating the other bears. There are seven different types in total, but they all just serve to make the game more difficult, which certainly doesn’t make the experience more entertaining. Trying to make it through a level within a specific time limit or failing a mission because you take any amount of damage are simply awful ideas and make progressing through Naughty Bear a painful experience.

Naughty Bear screenshot

Because of the way missions and mission progression are set up, these sub-episodes are made even more offensive. There are absolutely no checkpoints in Naughty Bear, meaning that if you’re on the third leg of a multipart episode and fail, you’ve got to start over again from the beginning. Making matters worse, not all of the game’s levels are accessible from the beginning of the game. Instead, players earn trophies based on their scores in episodes, which are required in large quantities to unlock more missions. This ensures that you’ll likely need to replay many episodes in order to get higher scores as well as have to partake in several sub-episodes that seem to delight in your aggravation.

While almost everything this game does, besides the killer bear part, is stuff we’ve seen before, there is one aspect of Naughty Bear that seems fresh and interesting. The way bears in the game interact with the things around them and react to what you’re doing is commendable. Bears who find things you’ve broken or sabotaged in the world will become suspicious, or perhaps even frightened depending on how many they’ve seen. If another bear hears or sees you attacking others, they will freak out and flee, sometimes hiding in closets in an attempt to escape your wrath. A frightened bear may even gather others and attempt to barricade the doors of a house, or simply make their way to a boat or car and attempt to escape. These kinds of reactions made the game feel, if only the slightest bit, more realistic and involved.

Unfortunately, while the first hour or so with the game was entertaining, the repetitive objectives, environments, and gameplay make you feel like you are in some sort of insidious gaming Groundhog Day loop. The addition of sub-episodes attempts to vary the experience, but it largely fails to do so. Instead, this makes the game even less desirable due to simply adding ridiculous and infuriating constraints to missions that have no checkpoints. Naughty Bear is truly a disappointment, especially considering how good all the trailers preceding the game made it look. In the end, this game had a ton of potential but failed to turn any of it into a good title. If you still feel the need to check this one out, I suggest waiting for it to hit the bargain bin.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 2.8 Graphics
The bears look good but everything else is generic. 2.5 Control
Many context-sensitive situations, which make up a surprising amount of the game, don’t perform as they should. 3.0 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
While well voiced, the announcer in the game is just as repetitive as everything else. 2.3 Play Value
The game is fun for the first hour, perhaps two, but after that, you’ve already done everything there is to do besides repeating the process many more times. 2.4 Overall Rating – Poor
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • Evade “the Fuzz” and increasingly dangerous Teddies, as they scramble to react to your extreme naughtiness.
  • Earn points through scares, intimidation, and kills. Rack up the points as you rack up the body count.
  • Watch the bears gang up on you and work together. Experience a different game every time you play, with a huge number of choices that players can make.
  • More than 30 unlockable levels, each with unique characteristics and weaponry to encounter at every stage.

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