Bad Behavior- Naughty Bear Review

Veteran gamers may recall Manhunt, Rockstar’s stealthy and sadistic action game which tasked players with eliminating foes as gruesomely as possible. With a release that predated the similarly repugnant Saw and Hostel film franchises, the game’s violence polarized both critics and gamers. Many chided the title(and it’s 2007 sequel) for a reliance on a blood-soaked delivery to generate any sense of tension. Presumably, if the game’s violence were to be excised, Manhunt would likely lose much of its impact.

Strangely, that is the route which Artificial Mind and Movement have taken with recent release Naughty Bear. Although the developers have replaced the copious puddles of plasma with innocuous cloth stuffing, in many ways the title evokes the shallow thrills and plentiful faults of Manhunt. From stabbing, beating, and shooting your fellow teddies, Naughty Bear‘s murderous tendencies have been sanitized enough to earn a ‘teen’ rating from the ESRB. Unfortunately, these brutal behaviors aren’t enjoyable or polished enough to warrant a full-priced recommendation. Most of the time, Naughty Bear feels like a ten dollar XBLA title. 

Each of the game’s seven stages require the eponymous protagonist to set traps, emotionally upset, and ultimately, cause physical damage to your fellow bears. Since a player’s score is measured by how heinous their actions are, developing an innovative method to inflict pain is crucial. Successful gamers will want to start by sabotaging devices and machinery in the environment and setting up treacherous traps for their curious brethren. Alternatively, players may sneak around the game’s environments screaming at unsuspecting bears or even freak them out with a conveniently-placed  corpse. Drive your fuzzy friends too crazy, and they’ll commit suicide, in one of the game’s most absurdist moments.

While Naughty Bear‘s psychological trauma is enjoyable to impose, the title’s corporeal combat is woefully simplistic. Players have a single attack button (which can be held down for a slightly more devastating strike), which offers rudimentary combos. Once another bear has experienced a sufficient amount of trauma, the game allows players to execute an “ultra kill”. Sadly, the title offers only a single animation for each weapon, severely limiting would could have been one of the game’s most entertaining elements.

To complement Naughty Bear‘s main campaign the developers also added a handful of multiplayer modes. For better or worse, each of the variations rely on proven competitive variations offering arenas where teams must defend a statue (assault), maintain possession of a golden cupcake (cake walk),  vie for a potent weapon (golden oozy), or race to gather collectables (jelly wars). While competitions were constrained by the game’s  button-mashing disposition, seeing squads of fluffy teddies engage in passionate fisticuff was perpetually comical.

Performance-wise, Naughty Bear is hardly a charmer; the game froze on three different systems, forcing several hard resets. Clearly, these crashes weren’t  the result of the developer pushing the hardware to its limits- the title seemed to have trouble maintaining a fluid framerate with a minimal amount of on-screen geometry. With an install size smaller than a gigabyte, Naughty Bear probably should have been given a XBLA release, where the game’s unexceptional visuals wouldn’t be as carefully scrutinized.

Like a movie based on a Saturday Night Live sketch, Naughty Bear stretches an entertaining topic far past its practical limits. While slight aesthetic disparity exists in the form of zombie or military bears, each of the game’s stages offers painfully little variation. Ultimately, curious gamers should wait until this title enters clearance territory, before stalking the title down.