Review: Battle Bears Go- Good 'Ol Bear On Bear Violence
September 6, 2010
Overview
Sometimes I lay awake at night. I dwell on things like ‘What if there were an app that was a combination of Left 4 Dead, Care Bears and Enders Game?’ Today I tell you, that app is here. Battle Bears Go is a refreshingly different TPS (Third Person Shooter) that will, if nothing else, inform you that when you shoot a teddy bear with an automatic weapon, rainbows shoot forth from its hollow neck.
I never knew.
Features
BBG utilizes the large iPad screen and familiar joystick controls, but actually has some tower defense elements. You are Rambo reincarnated as a teddy bear (not specifically, but basically) and you enter various rooms as streams of other, more colorful bears pour out of all four walls anxious to hug you to shreds. Not all evil bears are created equally. The peach and pink bears are pretty weak and fall with one bullet. The orange and yellow bears are beefier. The blue bears are the biggest and take several direct hits to die. But watch out for the cuddly green bears. They aren’t green like ‘Look at me I am environmentally friendly.’ They are green like ‘I am a kamikaze bear that will self destruct when I come near you and your stuffing will be scattered into thousands of pixels.’ As you defeat all of the bears in a room, you have the choice to go into any door except the one you entered. This is an interesting twist because as you go through this choice a few times you realize that every time you play the game you are almost guaranteed a unique experience. Some rooms are barren and others have gaping holes in the ground (hint: avoid these). Others are flood gates of pink doom or have stationary mounted missile firing machines.
The Good
BBG has swagger. It steps away from what is kosher violence and tricks your mind by making you destroy something that usually consoles you to silent slumber at night. It does it in a way that is charming while funky.
The ability to have unlimited ammunition is a life saver. If I would have had to worry about running out of bullets, this game would have immediately lost its funk and I would have turned it off. And not only do you have UA, power-ups give you additional bum kicking weapons and shields. Oozie not doing it for you? How does a semi-automatic missile launcher sound? Or a spray gun or a orbiting death orb. How about a nuke? These make the game interesting and fun and add additional ‘strategery’.
For one PUD (Penny Under a Dollar), this game is filled with challenge and ample levels. Some will say that this price is too high, but these people are insane and shouldn’t be reckoned with further.
Perhaps the ultimate feature of all, BBG has a Co-Op option! You can not only mow down fuzzy stuffed creatures alone, but go into the two player mode and you and your friend can sit across from each other and sprinkle death in tandem. This really makes the whole experience feel like a full priced console game.
The interface and menu are clean and interesting, the sound and music are fantastic and Open Feint is available in all its great glory.
The Bad
BBG is hard, sometimes too much so. The controls are good in comparison to other iPad games, but not as precise as said console game and you really feel it when you are trapped in a corner by a spectrum of teddies and you can’t kill the blue one instead of kamikaze green. And while it brings me back to the classic Mario days, the one touch- I mean ‘hug’- and then you die thing, basically sucks.
Unfortunately, there is no easy, medium and slightly hard to choose from, just really hard. Maybe this will draw hard core gamers to it like Care Bears to rainbows, but the lay user may just give up.
The level structure is unclear. After you pass through enough rooms, number unspecified, you can change the stage 0 on the start menu to stage 1. It was frustrating to not know how exactly to unlock other stages.
This game is also not extremely dynamic. Don’t expect more than gunning down teddies, ‘cause there ain’t much more than that.
The Verdict
Battle Bears Go is a full fledged game that includes extended game play, Co Op mode, and swagger while breaking down stereotypes of what you previously thought your stuffed comfort creatures do when you are away. Some will be turned off by the difficult game play, but for a PUD, there are few reasons not to get into this great bear action.
