Naughty Bear PS3 Game Review: Unbearably Bad

Naughty Bear is so bad, I'm embarrassed to have it in my home. My husband likes slasher films and doesn't like "cute" things, so he figured that he might enjoy a darkly humorous, but silly little game that combined adorable teddy bears with stabbity horror-movie antics. After about half an hour of play, I think he was even more embarrassed than I was.

Story

In Naughty Bear, you play Naughty, a sociopathic teddy whom the other bears of Perfection Island shun and ridicule. To cope with his feelings of alienation and existential angst, Naughty grabs up a weapon and tears the stuffing out of the other bears (literally--they are stuffed critters and have no blood). Naughty has different unlockable outfits, all of which are equally preposterous.

That's it. That's the entirety of the game right there. As levels progress, there are more bears, tougher bears, and bears in different settings, but it's all the same thing ad nauseam. I should mention that this game puts the "nausea" in "ad nauseam" thanks to its looping, swirling camera moves. During "ultra kills"--those occur when Naughty gets in an especially good lick on his fuzzy adversary--the camera angle shifts so abruptly that I felt a little ill after watching it despite not being prone to motion sickness.

Visuals and Sound

The animation itself is choppy and lackluster. Kill animations vary only slightly depending on weapon type and hit style. I'll admit that it was a little amusing to watch the stuffing fly the first couple of times, but it grew old quickly. Even the special "ultra kill" animation is identical from hit to hit. The original Doom had more varied death scenes and managed it with far fewer polygons.

Naughty doesn't talk; he lets his machete do the talking for him. However, the other bears natter to each other constantly in high-pitched whines that sound a bit like a mosquito trapped in one's auditory canal. While this admittedly did make me want to kill them, the twisting camera views made that a pretty unpleasant prospect, too. Oh, Naughty does make one sound: when he scares a bear, he yells "boo." Although it's enough to send toy bears mad with fright, it just made me wince. Apparently I am sewn from stronger stuff than bears.

I'll grudgingly admit that Naughty himself is rather cute with his tattered ear and his expression of menace. The stitched-felt look of the game's opening credits and text windows is also appealing, but putting that tiny bit of thought into the first few sights a player sees of the game only emphasizes how wretched the rest of it is by comparison. You may think you're getting an adorable, but macabre take on Little Big Planet, but you aren't.

Controls and AI

Naughty Bear is easy to play, if anyone wants to bother. There's an attack button. You hit it. Bears die. Ease of play isn't always a good thing, though; I could get about as much satisfaction from hitting the keys of a calculator.

The AI is downright imbecilic. Naughty can hide in wooded areas from other bears; they steadfastly refuse to see him even though his only concealment is a handful of leaves held in front of his cute little scowly face. At later levels there are not only ordinary bears, but also ninja bears and zombie bears. It doesn't matter; they're all as dumb as a bag of hammers.

Why Buy Naughty Bear

Naughty Bear seems to be trying to appeal to people who pulled the wings off butterflies as children. It fails at this; instead, it might possibly appeal to someone who thought the people who pulled wings off butterflies were cool, but who didn't have the intellectual prowess to manage it himself. If this does not describe you, don't buy this game. (Honey, I know you're reading this. I told you so!)

Why Not to Buy Naughty Bear

The game's AI is laughably bad, the graphics are mediocre at best, the camera angles may make you queasy, and it's probably the most dreadful full-price game to come out in the past year. You could achieve the same effect as buying Naughty Bear if you were to flush a few twenties down the toilet and give yourself a paper cut on the eyeball.