How can you go wrong with this? Lets find out.
Imagine if you will, that you are a social outcast; Living in the tiniest community, where every single person has hated you, laughed at you, poked fun at you and even the authorities don't try to console you. Then, one day, you hear of a big birthday party and you are the only one not invited. You decide to show up there with a present anyway. What happens next? They laugh at you. They laugh at your attempt to finally show you're capable of being friends. Then you return home sulking. What do you do now?
Well, Naughty Bear addresses this problem by throwing the present in the fire, and going on a homicidal Teddy Krouger rampage to punish all the bears by killing, maiming, scaring, and making bears go insane to get his revenge. This is the concept behind Naughty Bear, and you will be the one to perform all these nasty, rude actions towards the cute fluffy resident teddies of Perfection Island.
How you will go about this, is by sneaking around the woods, bushes where the other bears can't see you. Skulk around, sabotage items, set traps, scare the bears. Make them paranoid, or just go outright and kill them with an axe, or a revolver. All this is done to - here comes a kicker - gain arcade style points. Yes. You get to be on the killing side of a Slasher flick to grab millions of points. And you get points for absolutely anything. For darting past a window, they'll see you, which'll make them get paranoid, giving you points. For bears finding another bear that you've made terrified, those bears will become worried, giving you points. You get points for destroying things, sabotaging things, but the best that you can do, is showing the bears how Naughty you are. For example, killing someone right in front of them so they all see it, giving you tens of thousands of points.
I'll give you a great example of what I do. One real good way to start, is, once you've scouted out the area, and you know what is where, I like to find a bear who's wandered off alone. I'll set a bear trap down on the floor for when he has to come back. When he gets stuck in it, I run right up, and give him a big ol' scare. At this point I could have just snapped his neck, but now that I scared him, he's now terrified, and he's also limping cause of the trap. I'll duck back to the woods, and wait. Once he comes across the other bears. All those bears will start freaking out upon seeing an injured bear. And quickly, I can run in, and pin the injured bear to the floor, and shove a hatchet in his face six times in a row, and make all the others watch. That right there is probably worth a hundred thousand. Not to mention when they're all busy panicking, I can try and hide in a closet and wait for them all to barricade themselves inside that room, thinking they're safe, I'll jump out and scare the shit out of them and begin slapping bears left and right.
And that's just one of many tactics you are here to employ. Thankfully, the game also has a couple systems in place that encourage you to use different methods and explore different weapons. The first of which is your score multiplier. Whenever you're doing... well, whatever, this multiplier will go up and
up, and the higher it is, the more points you're getting for whatever you do next. Ideally, when it gets to around 75x or 100x you'll want to do some of the worse, more rich stuff. Like killing! The other thing, this one being highly important, is the system of "depreciating events". The more you do a certain action, the less points it's worth. So, axing all the bears over and over won't do you well; But not that it isn't a fun option if you wish.
Unfortunately, some of the games problems start here. It's not exactly clear what's affected by the multiplier, and the depreciation. Things like smashing windows depreciate easily, and are affected by the multiplier, but I remember making three bears in a row kill themselves, and they all gave me the same amount of points, despite the multiplier fluctuating and what I thought would be depreciating score. When a player realizes this, it might well put them into just doing the same thing over and over, and really with this game you need to make your own fun.
Some more of the games problems come in detection, and in the case of multiplayer, (more on that later) buggyness. Often times when I'm trying to sneak up behind a bear, it'll take some swivelling behind him for the Scare command prompt to come up. The same problem happens with bears who are fixing a stove, opening a fridge, etc. As for bugs, multiplayer is near-well broken. Even if you're the host of a match, every button you press takes about a half second to react. There's lag in EVERYTHING you do online, making it feel like you're pulling your bear by a string. The game doesn't exactly have deep controls that require cat-like reflexes, so this is a problem I could well pass on, but there is points (and this happens almost once per game) where there will be an intense lag spike, and your screen will freeze every second. This usually goes on for nearly a minute and it kills the mood there. Of course, all this is assuming you get a game that doesn't disconnect within the first few seconds. I'd say I've completed one out of every eight matches I try. It's a shame.
And finally for bugs, if you're an absolute achievement whore, steer clear of the Gold Edition disc. While it does come with all the DLC, all the achievements (or trophies) for the DLC are completely broken and will never work for you. The company has made it clear they aren't fixing this so you'd have to buy the DLC separately with a normal disc to get the shinies.
Unfortunately, the game's problems do not lie in just bugs. While this IS a point-grabbing game, it still could have done to rid itself of some of the repetition that plagues the game in a lot of aspects. There's literally only four areas in the game, and it places them in different combinations across all 7 (10 with DLC) episodes. This makes it easy to jump right into another episode, but the problem with just four areas I don't even have to explain.
Repetition is also the same for things like animations. Some of them are alright, and a lot of them are unique. Every weapon has it's own special killing cinematic, but the environmental objects,
not so much. Naughty Bear uses the exact same animations for burning a bears face onto a stove, OR grill. Here it makes sense. Something hot you press their face on to kill them. You don't have much leeway for uniqueness there. But it starts to become a little old when the same animation is used for conveyor belts and rotary record tables. Even still it makes sense. Press their face on something dangerous, but it just becomes ludicrious when I discovered this same animation was used for a sink. How pressing their face sideways into a sink kill them, I don't know. But it's certainly lazy.
Repetition is clearly the games worst offense. But that doesn't mean it's bad by any means. If you're a person who loves going for gold, then every time you start a round you'll be drawn in by wanting to do well enough to get a gold medal, whilst hearing the games cheesy, satire children's show narrator yelling "WELL NAUGHTY!" through your television. It's a giddy gratifying feeling, and every bit of the game is made enjoyable by the nature of it's satire, poking fun at cutesy shows and Care Bears. It also helps to curb some of it's repetition by introducing special bears in later episodes. These include alien bears, robot bears, ninja bears but certainly, the most hectic of them all is the Zombear chapter, because the Zombear's will be busy trying to eat all your targets, yet you still gain points trying to comprehend what you'll do in the chaos. It's a game that you'll buy to have a fun romp through when you don't want to do anything else, and for me that doesn't mean once a few months. I play this game at least once a week. It's just fun, straight and through.
And finally, like I said I'll get to the multiplayer. If you can GET a game physically going without disconnecting, you have a slew of options at hand. The time of day (which can range anywhere from a foggy green night to warm summer day) the map (pick one of three stages, each one is pulled directly from the campaign) and the game mode of which you have four (or eight with DLC) to choose from. There's a surprising amount of people playing, and with patience, you'll get to have some fun with two, three, or a maximum of four bears in one lobby.
The multiplayer modes are as follows. Assault, where one team must protect their statue. They can do this by murdering the other team before they can hurt the statue, setting traps, barricading a door, that sorta thing. Then, the players switch tea
ms and the team with the most wins at the end of the entire match wins. Often though, these end in ties. The next is Cake Walk. A golden cupcake is spawned randomly in the map. You must find it, pick it up and hold it for as long as you can. Every second you have it adds up to your score, but you can't fight back. So you'll have to swerve, trick and ween through bears to keep yourself alive while holding it, until they kill you. When they do, respawn and go find them. Kill them back and take the cake. Next, we have Golden Oozy. This is similiar to Cake Walk, but the person who finds the gun, must start shooting other bears. The ONLY way to get points is to kill bears with his gun, so be ready for an onslaught if you do pick it up. Finally we have Jelly Wars. Three bears must go round the map collecting jellies, while the fourth player will play as Naughty Bear. He must prevent them from collecting all five jellies by all means neccessary. This involves killing, sabotaging, and setting traps mostly. When a normal bear does die, he is put into a penalty zone, and one of the living bears must use a phone in the level to call them back in. Kinda like freeze tag. Multiplayer is an enjoyable experience, and losing is okay, because killing is just as silly as ever. Disconnecting however, not fun.
FINAL SAY:
It's buggy, repetitive, and sometimes downright lazy, but there is lots of fun to be had here. If you're willing to pile through the bad of the game, and don't have TOO much a need for multiplayer, then this may well be worth your money. I would recommend a full purchase, not just a rent, because this is certainly an experience I will at least be sinking a few hours into every month.
Well, Naughty Bear addresses this problem by throwing the present in the fire, and going on a homicidal Teddy Krouger rampage to punish all the bears by killing, maiming, scaring, and making bears go insane to get his revenge. This is the concept behind Naughty Bear, and you will be the one to perform all these nasty, rude actions towards the cute fluffy resident teddies of Perfection Island.
How you will go about this, is by sneaking around the woods, bushes where the other bears can't see you. Skulk around, sabotage items, set traps, scare the bears. Make them paranoid, or just go outright and kill them with an axe, or a revolver. All this is done to - here comes a kicker - gain arcade style points. Yes. You get to be on the killing side of a Slasher flick to grab millions of points. And you get points for absolutely anything. For darting past a window, they'll see you, which'll make them get paranoid, giving you points. For bears finding another bear that you've made terrified, those bears will become worried, giving you points. You get points for destroying things, sabotaging things, but the best that you can do, is showing the bears how Naughty you are. For example, killing someone right in front of them so they all see it, giving you tens of thousands of points.
I'll give you a great example of what I do. One real good way to start, is, once you've scouted out the area, and you know what is where, I like to find a bear who's wandered off alone. I'll set a bear trap down on the floor for when he has to come back. When he gets stuck in it, I run right up, and give him a big ol' scare. At this point I could have just snapped his neck, but now that I scared him, he's now terrified, and he's also limping cause of the trap. I'll duck back to the woods, and wait. Once he comes across the other bears. All those bears will start freaking out upon seeing an injured bear. And quickly, I can run in, and pin the injured bear to the floor, and shove a hatchet in his face six times in a row, and make all the others watch. That right there is probably worth a hundred thousand. Not to mention when they're all busy panicking, I can try and hide in a closet and wait for them all to barricade themselves inside that room, thinking they're safe, I'll jump out and scare the shit out of them and begin slapping bears left and right.
And that's just one of many tactics you are here to employ. Thankfully, the game also has a couple systems in place that encourage you to use different methods and explore different weapons. The first of which is your score multiplier. Whenever you're doing... well, whatever, this multiplier will go up and
up, and the higher it is, the more points you're getting for whatever you do next. Ideally, when it gets to around 75x or 100x you'll want to do some of the worse, more rich stuff. Like killing! The other thing, this one being highly important, is the system of "depreciating events". The more you do a certain action, the less points it's worth. So, axing all the bears over and over won't do you well; But not that it isn't a fun option if you wish.Unfortunately, some of the games problems start here. It's not exactly clear what's affected by the multiplier, and the depreciation. Things like smashing windows depreciate easily, and are affected by the multiplier, but I remember making three bears in a row kill themselves, and they all gave me the same amount of points, despite the multiplier fluctuating and what I thought would be depreciating score. When a player realizes this, it might well put them into just doing the same thing over and over, and really with this game you need to make your own fun.
Some more of the games problems come in detection, and in the case of multiplayer, (more on that later) buggyness. Often times when I'm trying to sneak up behind a bear, it'll take some swivelling behind him for the Scare command prompt to come up. The same problem happens with bears who are fixing a stove, opening a fridge, etc. As for bugs, multiplayer is near-well broken. Even if you're the host of a match, every button you press takes about a half second to react. There's lag in EVERYTHING you do online, making it feel like you're pulling your bear by a string. The game doesn't exactly have deep controls that require cat-like reflexes, so this is a problem I could well pass on, but there is points (and this happens almost once per game) where there will be an intense lag spike, and your screen will freeze every second. This usually goes on for nearly a minute and it kills the mood there. Of course, all this is assuming you get a game that doesn't disconnect within the first few seconds. I'd say I've completed one out of every eight matches I try. It's a shame.
And finally for bugs, if you're an absolute achievement whore, steer clear of the Gold Edition disc. While it does come with all the DLC, all the achievements (or trophies) for the DLC are completely broken and will never work for you. The company has made it clear they aren't fixing this so you'd have to buy the DLC separately with a normal disc to get the shinies.
Unfortunately, the game's problems do not lie in just bugs. While this IS a point-grabbing game, it still could have done to rid itself of some of the repetition that plagues the game in a lot of aspects. There's literally only four areas in the game, and it places them in different combinations across all 7 (10 with DLC) episodes. This makes it easy to jump right into another episode, but the problem with just four areas I don't even have to explain.
Repetition is also the same for things like animations. Some of them are alright, and a lot of them are unique. Every weapon has it's own special killing cinematic, but the environmental objects,
not so much. Naughty Bear uses the exact same animations for burning a bears face onto a stove, OR grill. Here it makes sense. Something hot you press their face on to kill them. You don't have much leeway for uniqueness there. But it starts to become a little old when the same animation is used for conveyor belts and rotary record tables. Even still it makes sense. Press their face on something dangerous, but it just becomes ludicrious when I discovered this same animation was used for a sink. How pressing their face sideways into a sink kill them, I don't know. But it's certainly lazy.Repetition is clearly the games worst offense. But that doesn't mean it's bad by any means. If you're a person who loves going for gold, then every time you start a round you'll be drawn in by wanting to do well enough to get a gold medal, whilst hearing the games cheesy, satire children's show narrator yelling "WELL NAUGHTY!" through your television. It's a giddy gratifying feeling, and every bit of the game is made enjoyable by the nature of it's satire, poking fun at cutesy shows and Care Bears. It also helps to curb some of it's repetition by introducing special bears in later episodes. These include alien bears, robot bears, ninja bears but certainly, the most hectic of them all is the Zombear chapter, because the Zombear's will be busy trying to eat all your targets, yet you still gain points trying to comprehend what you'll do in the chaos. It's a game that you'll buy to have a fun romp through when you don't want to do anything else, and for me that doesn't mean once a few months. I play this game at least once a week. It's just fun, straight and through.
And finally, like I said I'll get to the multiplayer. If you can GET a game physically going without disconnecting, you have a slew of options at hand. The time of day (which can range anywhere from a foggy green night to warm summer day) the map (pick one of three stages, each one is pulled directly from the campaign) and the game mode of which you have four (or eight with DLC) to choose from. There's a surprising amount of people playing, and with patience, you'll get to have some fun with two, three, or a maximum of four bears in one lobby.
The multiplayer modes are as follows. Assault, where one team must protect their statue. They can do this by murdering the other team before they can hurt the statue, setting traps, barricading a door, that sorta thing. Then, the players switch tea
ms and the team with the most wins at the end of the entire match wins. Often though, these end in ties. The next is Cake Walk. A golden cupcake is spawned randomly in the map. You must find it, pick it up and hold it for as long as you can. Every second you have it adds up to your score, but you can't fight back. So you'll have to swerve, trick and ween through bears to keep yourself alive while holding it, until they kill you. When they do, respawn and go find them. Kill them back and take the cake. Next, we have Golden Oozy. This is similiar to Cake Walk, but the person who finds the gun, must start shooting other bears. The ONLY way to get points is to kill bears with his gun, so be ready for an onslaught if you do pick it up. Finally we have Jelly Wars. Three bears must go round the map collecting jellies, while the fourth player will play as Naughty Bear. He must prevent them from collecting all five jellies by all means neccessary. This involves killing, sabotaging, and setting traps mostly. When a normal bear does die, he is put into a penalty zone, and one of the living bears must use a phone in the level to call them back in. Kinda like freeze tag. Multiplayer is an enjoyable experience, and losing is okay, because killing is just as silly as ever. Disconnecting however, not fun.FINAL SAY:
It's buggy, repetitive, and sometimes downright lazy, but there is lots of fun to be had here. If you're willing to pile through the bad of the game, and don't have TOO much a need for multiplayer, then this may well be worth your money. I would recommend a full purchase, not just a rent, because this is certainly an experience I will at least be sinking a few hours into every month.
1 comment:
Glad to see someone with the same views as me. Great review!
Post a Comment