Naughty Bear
Available on: Xbox 360 / Playstation 3
Rating: 2 out of 5

If you hate children television programs such as Barney or Teletubbies; and you enjoy mindless violence with little to no story on top of that - then Naughty Bear may be the game for you!
 
  Naughty just wants to be included in the fun; the story, if you want to call it that, has Naughty Bear going through and punishing each and every bear that has been out casting him.  I mentioned Teletubbies in the first paragraph for a reason, during the entire game I had Teletubbies stuck in my head.  Maybe it’s the fact that the other bears in the game are the same color as the Teletubbies, and some of some of them have the same personality or movements as well, or the fact that the narrator sounds oddly like the one found in Teletubbies… but that may be the reason why I enjoyed myself during some of the game.  There’s just something about running around and killing Teletubbies that really appeals to me. 
 
Naughty Bear can be controlled to kill or hurt each character in a different manner; you can either try to be a Sam Fisher [Splinter Cell reference] by sneaking around and killing other bears with stealth and setting traps, or you can go in like Rambo… guns blazing… kicking asses and taking no names.  I found that the stealth feature was more fun to play in the long run, running in with my guns blazing and completing each mission was fun at first, but it gets rather repetitive… and frankly makes the game too short.  When you are required to sneak around and set traps, it causes you to think of interesting and fun ways to reduce the bear population in the game.  Do you want to kill the bear by setting a basic bear trap?  Or would you rather sabotage the toilet which requires another bear to investigate… and then you jump out of a locker and axe them to death?  The technique is up to you, and there were a lot of clever ways of doing this.  That feature of creativity is the bread and butter in this game.  Unfortunately, even the stealth factor gets old and boring mid-way into the game.  Which is the main reason why this game isn’t getting a higher score from us – it’s the repetitiveness and cost of the game that causes most of the problems for us.  This would have been a perfect Xbox Live Arcade game; with a cost of 1200 ($15.00) Microsoft Points… that would have been a steal!  But with a price of $49 (or more), we can’t recommend this title to everyone until the price goes down below at least $20 or lower. 
 
My final thoughts… it’s fun for a while, but soon gets redundant.  It would have made a great Xbox Live Arcade game for 800 to even 1200 points.  But, if you like a game with more depth, I would pass.

Story: 1.5
Graphics: 3
Voice Talent: 1.5
Fun: 2
Replay Value: 2

Overall: 2 out of 5

Release Date: June 29, 2010
MSRP: $49.99
ESRB: T
Genre: Action Adventure
Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: A2M (Artificial Mind and Movement)
Available on: Xbox 360

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