Preview: Naughty Bear

Naughty Bear is a game filled with revenge, murder, birthday parties and plushy toys. It is a game comparable to Manhunt and even GTA. After not being invited to the Big Birthday Party, Naughty Bear decides to exact his revenge on the unsuspecting bears of the island. Interested? Read on to find out more.

Title: Naughty Bear

Developer: Artificial Mind and Matter

Publisher: 505 Games

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360

Expected Price: R600 – R700

Release Date: 28 June

Naughty Bear is perhaps unlike anything I have ever seen before, it combines cute and cuddly with violent behaviour and murder. If Happy Tree Friends was a game, this would be it. The story goes that Naughty Bear was not invited to the Big Birthday Party because all the other bears make fun of him and don’t like him. Despite his having gotten a special present for the mystery birthday-bear which he personally wrapped.

This of course sends Naughty Bear into a dark spiral of hate and resentment towards the other teddy-bears and their cruel mocking. So what does this poor, misunderstood creature do? He starts killing every single one of them. As vague as this sounds, there does seem to be a sort of mission structure in place where you have to kill certain bears at certain times, almost like assassinations. There also seem to be bears that you can just kill whenever you feel like it, just to keep your skills sharp. The game is not only about killing though, actually it’s mostly about killing but there are also defence and security systems on the island which you will have to disable or commandeer.

I assume that the game will follow this routine until the end, at which point you will most likely confront the mystery individual who had the nerve to not invite Naughty Bear to their birthday party. Until then however, Naughty Bear has a full arsenal of death tools at his disposal. Some are conventional such as the shotgun, bear trap and butcher’s knife. Other’s slightly more creative such as an industrial cake-mixer or camp fire. You name it, NB can probably use it to kill something. Similar to Manhunt, you are rewarded for more creative kills and use of environment.

This no doubt means that there are multiple ways to kill a target and could very well mean that you will never use the same kill-style more than twice or thrice. This is also a sandbox game so you are free to roam and explore the island in between missions. It is still unclear whether the game gives you full-freedom during missions or limits you to a certain area. With the timing and the fact that the game takes place on an island, expect to see many bear-themed LOST Easter-eggs.

Visually the game has tried to maintain that cutesy atmosphere that everybody envisions when they think of an island inhabited by teddy bears. Everything is bright and colourful with lush forests and flowers. All the bears are in bright colours, except for Naughty Bear who is the traditional teddy-brown. The graphics won’t win any awards but manage to pull-off that toy-box, mind-of-a-5-year-old kind of look. Everything, from the trees to houses, has that hand-made look to it as if it were from an educational children’s cartoon. It all makes the sinister themes of this game just that much more menacing.

I have very high-hopes for this game and currently expect it to do no less than blast my mind with its originality and creativity. There have been trailers parodying classic suspense thrillers so I certainly hope that little bits of creativity such as that are evident throughout the game. The whole concept is just so fresh and different (and disturbing) that I can’t help but be drawn in by it.

Revenge, murder, plushies and cake-mixers. Expect to be entertained, intrigued and mentally disturbed in equally addictive measures.

There will be stuffing.

[Images: IGN]