Naughty Bear (Xbox 360)

When Naughty Bear was announced my friends and I were pretty excited.  The gameplay seemed reminiscent of Rockstar's Manhunt (fun game by the way) and the story was just corny enough to be enjoyable.  You play Naughty Bear in this mature title and your primary goal is to torture other stuffed bears by any means necessary.  Kids and those who can't handle violence (more fluff-based as opposed to blood) need not apply as Naughty Bear uses various tools to accomplish his goals.  Is Naughty Bear worthy of being uttered alongside Rockstar's Manhunt, or will we be seeing it lying in the bargain bin sooner then later?

There's a birthday party being thrown Naughty Bear!  Were you invited?  No?  Oh too bad.  You made a present too?  Why don't you go and give it to him anyways!  The other bears laughed at your gift?  That's very cruel Naughty Bear!  Perhaps you should teach them a thing or two!  This is the first story that Naughty Bear is on and there are six others that follow a similar path.  While the other six may be a little more creative, they still result in having you go around, either collecting or destroying various objects, and then scoring enough points on your way to punishing one specific bear.  While pretty simple in concept, Naughty Bear has a lot of interesting and fun ideas set here.  Along with various weapons (axes, guns, sticks, golf clubs) Naughty Bear has the ability to tamper with various items in the environment.  Naughty can sabotage items like telephones, tvs, juke boxes, arcades, and pretty much any electronics around.  By doing this, if another bear sees that the items were tampered with, they will proceed to begin fixing them, leaving them open to Naughty's will.  Naughty then has two choices: Kill them (resulting in an item based death depending on what they're doing or where they are) or Scare them.  Most would believe that killing them would be the more satisfying of the two, but scaring the bear causes it to become more and more frightened.  Doing so adds to your combo and can result in them becoming insane.  If a bear is insane, Naughty can leave the bear running around terrified, causing the other bears to grow more scared, or scare the insane bear one more time, pushing him to commit suicide. 

As terrible (or great depending on your perspective) that sounds, the games execution is beyond broken.  The graphics seem more at home on a Xbox or PS2 and the camera is horrible (as seen here.)  The controls are pretty bad often resulting in Naughty Bear just yelling (seen in video) instead of going for his ultra scares.  What irritated me the most, however, was having to find specific items to destroy (presents, cameras, etc).  Paired with the terrible camera, you'll definitely be spending more time then needed on tracing these "collectibles."  Most of the death animations get old and while there is a decent collection of weapons here, they either bludgeon or shoot enemies and are near identical in execution.  It'd be easy to count this game out, but for some odd reason, I found myself enjoying the experience.  This is probably due to the arcadey feel of the title, pushing you to get a higher score, unlock new costumes, and unlock new challenges.  Some challenges require you to drive all the bears insane, while others force you to accomplish goals without being seen.  The costumes that you unlock too aren't just for asthetics either and each have their own strengths and weaknesses.  The zombie bear is slow and limps around, but has high health and incredible strength.  The ninja bear (my personal favorite) is ridiculously fast and has silent footsteps, but has very low health.  These costumes are then sometimes used for "ironic" achievements such as killing 4 cop bears in a zombie costume.  If you have a chance, check out the achievements list.  Some of them are pretty creative and funny in their references (resident evil!) 

Pathetic

Sub-Par Graphics
Gameplay tedious
Terrible Camera
Impossibly bad AI
Tacked on Multiplayer

Very Nice!

Surprisingly Addictive
Lots of Unlockables
Great Concept
Lots of Costumes

FINAL GRADE: D+

I wanted to give this game a decent score I truly did, but I couldn't excuse it's glaring faults.  I loved the concept and there are tons of ideas here that, if executed properly, could warrant a purchase.  As an Xbox Live Arcade title I'd say this game is worth a look, but as a full fledged store release, this game should definitely be avoided.  While not nearly as bad as some reviewers are trying to get you to believe (GamesRadar called it one of the worst games of 2010) it still is pretty bad and worth (at most) $20 and that's truly truly pushing it.