You may have heard of Naughty Bear, you know, the game that had about 5 trailers a day released for it? Turns out, there was a reason why this game showed no gameplay footage in those trailers, I’ll give you a hint: It’s not very good. The game follows Naughty, a bear who wasn’t invited to a party, oh no! This results in Naughty getting up to some particularly nasty things on the Island of Perfection which apparently spans the length of my garden tenfold. While the game seems to have these great ideas which were evident in the trailers, it’s certainly hamstrung by clunky gameplay mechanics which are simply not acceptable by 2010’s standards.
The game is set out in traditional score based levels, giving rewards for the amount of Naughty points obtained. By the second or third level you will have seen everything the game has to offer aside from some humorous character models, don’t expect a lengthy game either, the five main chapters could be done well under 4 hours and the additional challenges will add a bit extra to the value, these are still recycling the same levels you’ll see throughout with the same recycled sounds, it’s gets a bit dull. The general mission structure usually involves reaching a certain amount of points before you can move to the next section, get to the last section, kill X or destroy Y, it gets old fast.
Unfortunately Naughty Bear isn’t a good looking game either, the cutesy visuals are flat from a technical standpoint, artistically though I do appreciate the small touches like the kill animations and the menus, still though, after seeing the death animations once, that’s it, you’ve seen them, objects have standard breaking animations, I’m speaking PS2-era animations here, weapon combos are standard 3-hit melees combos which never switch up, it’s just a bad looking game. There is nothing particularly outstanding from a presentation standpoint and it’s incredibly disappointing to see that this level of quality is still present on a retail disc of 2010; this barely qualifies for an XBLA title.
Naughty Bear is an unfortunate game that benefits no one, the end user receives a shallow experience, one that doesn’t have enough variety to justify a purchase, it has no redeeming qualities and the developers have a tarnished reputation, after all, these are the guys are the guys that made Wet, a game I thought was not that bad. Do yourself a favour, don’t spend your money or time on Naughty Bear.