Go Fanboy - Everyone Has A Favorite

Growing up in a household full of girls and being the only boy besides my dad, I was surrounded by stuffed animals, teddy bears and dolls most of my young life. Needless to say, when mom and the sisters were not around, the bears and dolls instantly became soldiers completely out of their typical character and the violence between usually friendly toys was on. Naughty Bear takes everything I had to create in my imagination as a kid with my sister’s bears and throws it onto the TV screen. The storylines are quite the same, since Naughty Bear has different motives for his anger, but the result is just as satisfying.

Gameplay in Naughty Bear is simple and satisfying. As you may have guessed by now, Naughty Bear has a bit of a chip on his shoulder. The reasons do vary, but the basic idea is that Naughty Bear is left out of the fun and wants revenge. Who hasn’t missed out on the cool party at one point or another because they were not invited and felt like taking it out on all those who did go? Maybe I’m giving away a little too much about my life in Junior High. Naughty Bear, like a teen who sat home on Saturday night, is making all the bears regret being invited. You unleash terror on the other bears in a variety of painful manners including sabotaging certain set pieces and areas to simply chopping up the friendly little bears that got to party without you. There’s even some toilet humor thrown in the mix. No literally, there are toilets involved in some cases.

Points come from more than just killing and maiming. Scaring bears can lead to multipliers resulting in big points. Because of this, it’s sometimes much better to scare one of the happy bears and send them running off into the woods (or wherever they are) so they can alarm the others and set off a chain of scares and kills for major multipliers. If you time everything out just right, you could possibly pull off a combo that last almost a whole mission. These rare instances will have you calling friends into the room to see your stellar score and earn some bragging rights in the process.

The only downside to the combat and killing, which is what this really comes down to, is the waiting. Sometimes you’re stuck playing the stealth game a little too long as you lay in wait for an unsuspecting victim to wonder by. These slow periods in Naughty Bear can pull gamers out of the action a bit since the bear slaughters usually keep things fast-paced and action-packed. While it’s not Metal Gear Solid by any means, there is something super-satisfying about leaping out of a bush after a long wait and cutting a bear to bits right before popping back out of site and dashin off to kill another partygoer.

The graphics in Naughty Bear are simple and solid. The overall look is intended to be a mix of a fantasy Bear Village with somewhat dark over-tones. There isn’t a lot going on around the island, but what is there, including Naughty Bear himself looks good. The audio is okay, but won’t get mistaken for epic by anyone. Music and sound effects all do their job well in terms of blending into environments and setting moods, but can come off as a little generic at times. This might be a trivial complaint to many, but some people might want to nit-pick about the audio. The music isn’t anything to write home about, but is perfect for the mayhem involved in ripping out stuffing.

Overall Naughty Bear is a fun game with simple mechanics and one goal in mind – to allow players the chance to turn soft and cuddly teddy bears into piles of fluff and stuffing while getting virtual revenge for all those parties you might have missed out on. For someone like me who had to use stuffed animals instead of GI Joes as a kid, this game is perfect. Check it out if you have a chance and you’ll have a ball helping Naughty Bear get his revenge.