Review

Developed by:Behaviour Interactive Published by:505 Games Genre(s):
  • Action Adventure
  • Platform:
  • Microsoft
  • Sony
  • Cost:$14.99 ESRB Rating:TEEN Players:1 Release date:October 9, 2012 Reviewed on:XBox 360
    2

    Naughty Bear: Panic in Paradise

    So, I take it the assumption for most bad game franchises is just make the same mistakes, change the scenery, and call it a new game. Well at least that what it feels like in Naughty Bear: Panic in Paradise. Spoiler alert, this review isn’t a happy one!

    For those who have no idea I’m talking about, let me tell inform you of the game’s premise. You’re a teddy bear, upset at other teddy bears for leaving you out of their vacation plans. Of course, you’ll have to seek out your revenge; how dare they have fun without you! This leads to teddy on teddy murder in the worse way. It’s an interesting idea on paper. Gamers get to play as a homicidal maniac in a low budget horror movie with…um…with teddy bears. There is a lot to work with here, especially when it comes to using dark humor. Unfortunately, that’s not the case when it comes to this title.

    Now the potential of taking something cute and turning it into something awesome isn’t impossible (i.e. Kingdom hearts) but it also isn’t easy to do. Well this one is a perfect example of how not to do it. I’ll start with gameplay. The controls themselves don’t seem very responsive and they can be, at times, confusing. I found myself on multiple occasions in a fight where my character would randomly start growling because I pressed the wrong button (never found out what that means). Even when things work as they should, the fighting still ends up being clunky.  And, in a hack and slash-esque type of game that features repetitive combat mechanics, that is just unacceptable. If I have to do the same thing over and over, that “thing” should be as fun as possible!

    Each level asks of you to seek out revenge, hunting down certain teddies and killing them in particular ways. There is a scoring system, multiple weapons, and horror movie mechanics (like freaking out the other teddies by letting them witness the murders) that are sprinkled in. While that could have been cool, after a while each mission begins to feel similar. The game becomes boring rather quickly.

    Graphically, this title looks mediocre at best. XBLA titles have grown tremendously in terms of visuals so I don’t pull punches when it comes to judging them. Each map has a cute feel to counter the violent nature (well as violent as teddy bears can be) on every level. That said, there’s nothing that helps this title to stand out amongst other titles. If anything bothered me more than the gameplay and visuals it was the sound. I was so annoyed by the voiceovers and music in this game. From narration to characters, it all felt really corny. And not in the “it’s so bad it’s good” corny. The music is usually grim in this vacation resort; I thought it would have been ironic to keep the fun music in as you “de-fluffed” the other bears. I’d of taken anything to keep me from turning the sound all the way down while playing.

    Needless to say, I didn’t enjoy this game at all. I had never played the previous games so I went into this unbiased as usual and couldn’t find many positive things about this game. With so many huge XBLA titles, this one just doesn’t keep up with the greats.

    Gameplay:

    3

    It’s just not fun.

    Graphics:

    3

    Though the teddies are cute, much of the game looks bad.

    Sound:

    2

    Annoying at best.

    What's New:

    1

    Outside of the premise, I didn’t see anything really new here.

    Replay Value:

    1

    If it isn’t fun, you most likely won’t replay it.

    Final Score:

    2

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