Tuesday is new game release day, and Wednesday is new comic day.  Now I don’t typically buy as many new games as I buy comics, but I tend to keep an eye on what’s getting released in the same way.  This last Tuesday saw two releases that I have been watching for a while now.  Lego Harry Potter, and Naughty Bear.  I knew what to expect with any Lego game, while they may tell different stories, the game play is similar across the board.  The Sleeper was Naughty Bear.  I had seen a number of preview videos and some of the trailers, and to be honest, they did their job well and I was enticed.  It looked funny/cute in a “Happy Tree Friends” sort of way.

Sadly, I was wrong.  I bought Naughty Bear at 7:30pm on Tuesday night, got home and played through the first “episode” and instantly knew that I had made a mistake.  I toughed it out and finished the episode, then packed it up and headed back to Gamestop.  Thankfully the gracious personnel there were nice enough to let me swap it out for Lego Harry Potter.

Side note here.  I was warned, by Erin when I bought Naughty Bear, that it was going to be bad.  I decided to make my own judgment.

So what made it so bad?  Well, The idea was good and funny.  Unfortunately that was the extent of the good.  The Premise was that you played Naughty Bear, the bastard step child of this “Care Bear” style island where everything is puppies and kittens.  Some of the other bears on the island have treated you unfairly and you decide to get back at them by being naughty.  Being Naughty can range from scaring them, sabotaging their stuff, or even bashing their stuffed heads in with a baseball bat.  Who wouldn’t think that could be fun?!

What it ended up being was a series of “Challenges” where you had to sneak around and scare/kill your fellow bears while disrupting their activities.  I guess that you could play the game more Sam Fisher style and sneak in the bushes then pop out and scare them, but after the first time you do that they all know you are there, so no more sneaking will help you.  From there is just becomes “I’m going to run around and hit you with a bat”.  When you finish with the bears, you can gain a few extra points by smashing stuff.  And that was it!  After a while, even the narration is grating.

Now, I think the game may be not as bad as I am making it out to be if it weren’t for one more glaringly bad problem, it was release at the price point of $49.99.  For the same price as something like Lego Harry Potter, you get a game that may have done well as an Xbox Arcade title, for maybe $10-$12 bucks

The Graphics were just ok, the actual game mechanics were horrible.  I had to maneuver myself around and fumble with the view to get into a position where I could actually scare another bear.  Just Awful, one of the worst games I have tried.  This may, and I emphasize MAY, be worth it when the price drops down to like $5, which I have no doubt that it will fall to that.