|
Naughty Bear
There has
been some great hype in the last few months revolving around this
disturbing game. You only have to watch the trailers to know that
Naughty Bear has some serious mental health issues. Or perhaps this
game is a social commentary on the increase of bullying in schools and
the workplace? Probably not! None the less, it’s fun to dissect and
theorise on what were the motivations for creating this game.
Unfortunately with such a cool premise, the game is let down by buggy
programming that really put a dampener on the fuss.
So what is
all the fuss about? Naughty Bear is like a twisted British kids TV show
that stars the demented and violent Naughty Bear. Remember the
game called Manhunt on the XBox 360 which got banned here? Naughty Bear
is of a similar vein as you disembody your fellow teddies. The
motivation behind Naughty’s unbecoming behaviour is triggered after
years of being teased, ignored and bullied by his fellow teddy bears,
Naughty has had enough. A reckoning has come to this world of cute
stuffed teddy bears and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse have been
replaced by a twisted teddy with a huge grudge.
The
concept of Naughty Bear is brilliant and I’m surprised that no games
developer has thought of this idea before. Just imagine one of those
cute kids’ series on TV going postal and that’s where Naughty Bear comes
into the picture. Even the sickeningly sweet commentary suits the
premise perfectly as he tells us of the motivations of Naughty and it’s
almost like the bears split personality is talking which is a little scary
in itself.
Gameplay
wise, Naughty is set in the third person view as you control him with
the environment and interact with other bears… actually inflict a
horrendous mayhem on them by maiming them and ripping out their
stuffing's. The main goal of the game is to extract revenge on these
cuddly denizens but this can be achieved in a variety of ways such as
shotguns or baseball bats. It’s also great how the other teddies
interact with Naughty and from your violent action, some may attempt to
bring you down but for the majority, they will flee and hide. If you let
too many bears see your actions or flee, some will
contact the police teddies.
Weapons
are generally the primary way of dispatching the innocents… err enemies
in the game, however up your sleeve, you can even use other “combat”
methods such as psychological attacks. Nothing is more fun than hiding
in the bushes or a locker and then scaring the absolute crap out of one
of the teddies. By using the psychological method to dispose of your
foes, you are awarded more points than the traditional weapon kills and
it’s quite amusing to see some of the cute little teddies commit suicide
from Naughty’s constant badgering.
You can
even sabotage certain items in the game, luring the bears to investigate
and then “Here’s Johnny!” to finish them in an almost Mortal Kombat like
way. Apart from maiming these teddies, Naughty also has a variety of
objectives that he must complete before another section of the game
opens. Fortunately the sections are quite small and Naughty Bear is a
game best served in small amounts.
There are
however, some really annoying things about Naughty Bear on the PS3. The
first part of the annoying factor is the horrible frame rate on the PS3.
When the screen starts moving left or right as you control the camera,
the game shutters and considering that the graphics are simplistic, it’s
a wonder what on Earth the game is doing. The second part of the
annoying factor is the gameplay and unfortunately after the first few
areas of the game, you’ve’ pretty much seen it all when it comes to what
Naughty can do. I really wanted to adore and worship this game, however
these two aspects make it very difficult and it seems that further Q&A
was needed on the game.
Graphically, the title looks decent on the PS3 and is quite reminiscent
of those colourful Saturday morning cartoon series, except this game has
a teddy bear psychopath in it. Naughty is animated well and interacts
well with the environment but every now and then, the camera angle will
play havoc, especially if you’re inside a building. As you do progress,
so do the enemies you face like the teddy zombies (stop rolling your
eyes). The musical score of Naughty Bear sounds like an old cartoon show
but it has this horror type element to it. The sound effects are fun and
over the top as is the commentary that has some great one-liners about
our little psycho teddy. It's unfortunate that the graphics let
the game down so much.
In the
end, Naughty Teddy had the character, premise and even the
story, however the gameplay needed some more polishing. If it wasn’t for
the graphical stutter, I would have enjoyed Naughty Bear more but for
me, it actually caused me eye strain. I was able to complete the game
through the craziness of Naughty that motivated me for just one more
teddy bear killing. It’s a shame that the developers didn’t spend a
little extra time in perfecting what would have been a thoroughly
enjoyable game. |
