PlayStation News, Articles and Information for the UK and Europe

PLATFORM: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Naughty Bear didn’t get the same head start on publicity as other recent games such as Demon’s Souls and Red Dead Redemption, which both got a lot of hype pre-release, although it’s bear-based movie spoofs are darkly funny (all of which can be found on their website). But does it have the potential to be remembered in the future? Read on to find out…

Naughty Bear follows the story of a bear on an island inhabited by all manner of fluff-based animals, from the innocent bears going about their daily routine, to the fluffouls that fly around the sky innocently. Naughty (the deranged psychopath with the machete on the cover), is the most hated bear on the island, he is taunted by the other bears (not so nice with a baseball bat) and pushed to murder by an English voice (the narrator) inside his head, turning Naughty against all the other bears and being as naughty as you can possibly be! Whether it be just screaming ‘BOO!’ from the top you your lungs or burning some unfortunate bear to a crisp, the whole point of the game is to be as naughty as possible and get naughty points - the equivalent of XP(experience points).

One of the finishing moves

The story starts with you, Naughty, killing everyone in the party because they didn’t invite you to it, and according to the voice in your head, because you ‘have been too naughty recently!’. The story starts from a simple – and I use the term lightly - bear slaughter, into the undead being resurrected by a baker, and ends up with you fighting hordes of robot bears with funny names and aliens! Although it is fun the first few times the story is very short (7 Levels, come on!) and has little detail on the story itself other than a small, 10-30 second cut-scene explaining why to kill this bear or make that bear insane, which is quite repetetive and boring, making for a hollow and unfulfilled experience after the first couple of times trying to get the platinum trophy in a particular level.

Not a very good fighting layout but who needs to fight when you have a BBQ?

Once you finish a level or get a certain number of trophies you unlock either the next level or a bonus level, in which you need to complete a series of challenges; and your reward, I hear you ask? A new costume! There are 31 costumes in  total (33 if you count the limited edition Freddy and Jason costumes). Each costume has its own special ability, usually just upgrading your stats, but on some of the more challenging ones you get special perks like a high powered ‘oozey’ or a ninja sword, and some even let you roam around unnoticed! You can obtain a costume by accomplishing the task, tasks start out easy (1-10th costume) then they get allot harder(11-20), the most difficult are the costumes near the back, one of which needs you to get platinum on all levels(which is very hard!).

The soundtrack for the first 3 levels (including the 5 sub-levels within each level) is very jolly and somewhat cartoony despite all the torture and killing. After those first 3 levels a spooky and eerie soundtrack starts playing, bringing more atmosphere and suspense to the game, also, it’s more appropriate to the theme of the game/level. The soundtrack changes twice more during the course of the story but to stop any spoilers, I won’t say what about. The soundtrack isn’t anything special and won’t have you listening instead of playing the game. It isn’t bad enough for me to turn the volume right down, but don’t count on an amazing soundtrack that will leave you listening for hours.

Going about their business

The bears are not just robotic AI doing the same action over and over, the bears act differently depending on how worried they are; if they are completely unaware of you, they will go about their own life. Some will be watching TV, others playing video games, others just busting some funky moves on the dance floor. Although they are independent they don’t have a noticeable personality either. Naughty Bear is a skillful game at some points although none of the characters stray off the sidewalk in any situation, which takes all stealth out of the traps. If the bears are suspicious, some will search for you, others will tell more bears and some (that are in a hut) will stand at the window and look for you. Most bears aren’t separated by the colour of their fur, some wear costumes and are harder to scare or kill than others, and most police (‘The Fuzz’) or SWAT don’t get frightened by the other bears suffering. As the missions progress the difficulty  gradually increases like in most games and new weapons appear in the level the more you progress through the story (however short it may be).

Naughty Bear is not, and never will be, known for it’s graphics. Although it doesn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out with my hands, it’s not picture perfect, or even above-average! Most of the time I am walking through dead bears or doors. Graphically, Naughty Bear has the graphics of a downloadable game from the PSN store, and not even the best ones either!

Overall, Naughty Bear is the type of game that will give you a cheap laugh for a couple of hours, then get dull and repetitive and make you want a refund. I would only recommend you rent this, and if (by some miracle) you want to buy it, then do so, but this game will receive very little recommendation as a result of its short story, repetitive gameplay, mild graphics and bad soundtrack, giving it a very poor rating.