UPDATE: January 29th, 2010
Today only, Battle Bears 1.5 is available for free from FreeAppADay.com. If you balked at buying it, here's a chance to enjoy the entire game for nothing. Beware the Huggables!
UPDATE: December 18th, 2009
Battle Bears has just released a major content update in version 1.5, adding boss fights, new weapons, and more cutscenes. Some of the more notable new foes include the Bearbershop Quartet and a hulking Bearserker, who must be taken out with black jelly bean droppings from an unfortunate Jackelope. We love Battle Bears mainly for its incredible humor, so we think you should check out the 1.5 update as well.
There’s more than one way to kill a teddy bear. At least there is in Battle Bears, a clever shooter from SkyVu Pictures.
You play as Oliver, a foul-mouthed brown teddy bear who has just made off with a wagon full of gold and mystical treasures. You’re being chased by a horde of fluffy pink teddy bears whose sole goal is to hug you to death. “Hug me” they call, over and over again, in a high-pitched voice.
When your unicorn-drawn cart crashes, you're forced to take cover. After firing off a string of expletives, the game begins with you shooting at wave after wave of cuddly enemies.
Hug Me!
Killing these possessed children's toys is great fun. Body shots cause neon blood to gush out, while headshots make the head pop off and rainbows come out of the neck stump. The colorful deaths and high-pitched, cartoonish death cries contrast nicely with the serious battle music playing in the background
There are a number of weapons you can use to ward off the marauding pink bears, including a rifle with unlimited ammo, a unicorn horn crossbow and a bearzooka, which shoots pink teddy bear limbs. Each of the five levels, made up of four stages each, unlocks a new weapon you can use to attack or defend against the enemy bears. Every stage gets progressively harder, with more bears coming at you faster.
Battle Bears manages to provide a good challenge without being frustrating. In addition to the dozens of pink teddy bears you must continually fight off, occasionally super speedy orange bears or lumbering, gigantic blue bears will show up to provide some variety.
There is no way to save your progress, though, so if you get hugged to death halfway through the game, you must start over again from the beginning. This can get annoying, but the game is so much fun to replay that it’s not a big problem.
This is our worst nightmare.
One of the more interesting features are the two shooting styles. You can either have your gun fire bullets automatically while you set your sights on the bears, or you can select the relative option, which allows you to aim and then tap to fire. This acts like a sniper mode, having you shoot the bears carefully instead of mowing them down. Though this mode is more difficult to master, the aiming is a bit more choppy than in absolute mode, and it can be a bit slow to pan left and right across the screen.
We won't spoil the ending for you, but Oliver's hatred of the pink teddy bears is never fully explained. We will say that Battle Bears gives you a very twisted ending to a delightfully twisted game. Beating the game also opens up survival mode, which allows you to fight wave after wave of enemy teddy bears.
Battle Bears is a fantastic shooter with wide appeal. Its easy-to-use controls make it a good introduction to survival shooters, while the challenging stages offer something for the more seasoned player. SkyVu promises future updates, new levels, and even a film based on Battle Bears. We enjoyed this game and look forward to any new developments. At $.99, Battle Bears is a Must Have.
19 Comments
I have not played this one yet but it doesn't look like it is a must buy. STP has become too generous lately with the 4 rating, maybe it is time to take a look at your rating system and implement more levels or grades? Otherwise you might end up with non-reviews like those found on Touch Arcade. "Hey this game is cool, buy it, 4 out of 4 and two thumbs up"
Point taken-- but play this game. We really think it deserves our highest rating.
Try it before you knock it :)
On your other point--think about how many iPhone games come out in a month. We typically give 8-12 of those Must Haves.
Last month, we only ended up with about 6. =]
Play the game and you'll see what everyone is talking about.
Battle Bears is the #2 Game on iTunes and #6 of all apps...this game is only going to get more popular. I give it 5 stars!
this game is so ugly bwaaa ! freak-bears and basic gameplay 5 stars ? a joke.
It's a great game. Really veeery funny.
But a 4?
Just to bring up the "repetitive" thing, because of which you killed Samurai.
Later on in the game I really just went on playing because I was hoping for other cool weapons/cut scenes.
But it doesn't get a lot harder, it just gets more and more repetitive, the longer you play.
I write for another of these iPhone review sites and we end up with about 1-2 5-star games each month. I am just saying that 8-12 must haves is a bit steep. That equals about 100 games a year and that quite frankly are tooo many must buys.
Which site? And how many games do you cover a month? We post 25 stories a week (most, but not all, reviews), making for 100 stories a month. The overall percentage of stories that get a 4 ends up being pretty low.
TouchGen, covers quite a lot of games as well.
Tried the free version of Battle Bears and it is far from a must buy for me. It gets boring, and repetitive after 10 minutes. A real lack of animations to the enemy bears. Good things are the funny story, and good voiceacting. I will not buy the full version of this as I am guessing you can't upgrade your guns, cover or dodge? Is there any variation to the full game at all?
You can't cover or dodge. But you get some fantastic and very inventive new weapons or extras every few stages like a Bearzooka (enemie bear arms as bullets) or a Swearaphone to stunn the enemy bears with some "'f**k" :) ...that is really the best part. I also like the presentation!
A 3 for this would be ok.
No question, the game is pretty kewl, though the controls can be quite annoying and unprecise (espacially when it comes to hitboxes...sometimes you think you hit one...but there is no response visible)...and when I compare this to games rated 1 (Duke Nukem, Worms a.s.o) I don't see this huge difference in rating! With those games your soul argument for the bad rating was controls controls controls...you never cared how great the flair and style was.
By all means your rating system is just not fair and by far not objective in any ways.
The more you split up your rating into the different aspects which matter for a game to be a must have, the less you'll have to explain yourself why you rated a game good or bad.
But like this...your rating is just your personal oppinion lacking a professional control structure.
Anyhow....Battle Bears is pretty good, but since it IS quite repatative and as the controls aren't that precise and the hitboxes don't fully cover the modell, while body shots lack enough response to be certain you hit...the game is a good 3, not 4!
And once again: fix your rating system!
BTW: sry4typos
Thanks for your comment, rima. Any review is inherently subjective--that's the nature of the beast. We do our best to be as objective as possible and to back up our opinions as clearly as we can in the text of the review, so that readers can make an informed buying decision. We hope that even if you don't agree with one of our reviews, you at least understand why we scored a game the way we did.
You can find an explanation of what each number in our scoring system means here: http://www.slidetoplay.com/about.html
Also, we're always glad to hear about what readers think here in the comments section, as well as in our forums.
You got my vote rima, a new rating system is needed for STP. Hopefully 1-5 or 1-100, and please divide the different aspects like graphics, sound etc. And things that really spoil a game such as lack of save game when interrupted should be taken into consideration for the final score. Battle Bears is a clear 2/4 for me or better still a 3/5.
Other than that I really enjoy what you write in your reviews, but I want to know the quality of the game and not only how cool it is to the reviewer.
Controls are loose.
I got it free, played it for 5 mins saw how limited and boring the game was and deleted it.
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