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REVIEW: BEAR SIMULATOR (PC/Mac)

11/3/2016

16 Comments

 
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I wasn't planning to review this, but given that I gave PewDiePie - the idiot king of YouTube - some stick for slagging it off, I thought I should probably give it a go. 

So... you know when you've made a big fuss about something like, say, you insist in front of all your friends that the Battle of Agincourt took place in September 1415, but they're all like "Nah man - dat shiz went down in the October 1415, brah", and yet you argue and argue and argue until they eventually decide it isn't worth the hassle, and say that you're probably right, just to shut you up? 

And you know how you're pleased you won the argument, but something niggles at you, so you go home and you look it up online - and it turns out they were right, that the Battle of Agincourt actually did happen in October 1415?

Now you're faced with several choices:
  1. Own up to your mistake.
  2. Continue to maintain that the Battle of Agincourt happened in September 1415.
  3. Pretend to have a fit every time somebody mentions the Battle of Agincourt.
  4. Try to have your cake and eat it: "Well, technically it was October 1415, but the lead-up to the battle really began in September, so you could say it began then."

So. Yeah, well. That's me right now. Option 1: Bear Simulator is rubbish. With a bit of 4: I'm still right.

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YOGI
This is entirely beside the point, but do you know what really irritates me about modern game reviews?

When they start like this: "I was in a cave. Dank. Dark. The walls were possibly limestone. On the floor behind me was a grub, writhing, oozing pus... I knew I had to get out."

Guy... no. You're not in a cave - you're playing a video game. Just tell us about it. Stop making out like you're writing a travel blog, or you're Hunter S. Thompson, or something.

Regardless, that is how Bear Simulator starts: you play a bear, you wake up from hibernation in a cave. There are some instructions pinned to the wall - "eat everything" is the thrust of the game. Which would be fine if the food wasn't so sparse. The game is two parts foraging to one part hunting, to half a part defending yourself from fockses and crabs.

Regrettably, the hunting is virtually impossible, especially in earlier parts of the game - before your bear has "levelled up". Birds fly away from you. Rabbits run off at speed. You can give chase, but because you can't run and attack simultaneously, and because you're viewing everything through the bear's eyes, killing animals is a case of hitting buttons and hoping for the best.

Your only real hope of catching your prey is that it gets snagged on the scenery. Which does, fortunately, happen with needless regularity. 

The world isn't terrible to look at - it's well designed, large and diverse, but clearly a budget experience. If you're expecting the lushness of a Firewatch, or a Far Cry Primal, you need to reign in your optimism.

Ultimately, though, this isn't up to much. There's just not enough to do, and while it strives for a degree of quirkiness, it's not sufficiently out-there to be entertaining beyond the gameplay. There are no real laughs, intentional or otherwise - and isn't that half the point of these animal simulator games?

Plus, there's seemingly no overall agenda or grand vision holding it together, it's more a collection of half-formed ideas dropped into a barren game world. In fact, it's probably quite an accurate simulation of bear-life, given that being a bear is probably pretty dull.

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PADDINGTON
Fortunately, I have come away from Bear Simulator still believing that PewDiePie is a ghastly idiot.

Unfortunately, Bear Simulator's first-person perspective, the sheer emptiness of the world, and the sparseness of its personality, means that there's no chance of any accidental amusement happening.

You're not going to see YouTube flooded with videos of hysterical people playing it - which is likely part of PewDiePie's disappointment; he felt like he'd wasted his time trying to make a funny video out of it.


But here's the thing: you can't blame its creator, John Farjay, for Bear Simulator being rubbish. By his own admission, he isn't skilled enough to have made a better game. He clearly wasn't expecting to get given $100,000, and no doubt felt the pressure that such a sum of money brings with it. No wonder he has decided to abandon it. 

The responsibility for Bear Simulator a) Existing, and b) Being rubbish, lies entirely with the backers. They flocked to support an inexperienced creator's game, just because it was called "Bear Simulator" - clearly hoping for another unlikely hit, in the vein of Goat Simulator. 

That's one of the issues with Crowdfunding: in the past, indie creators had to be driven by passion. They often learn the hard way about the numerous pitfalls of development. Now anyone can just put up their idea on Kickstarter, get given a decent amount of money for it - and then be faced with the issue of bringing that idea to fruition, regardless of their level of skill or experience.

Let's do it now: Swan Simulator. Who's up for it?

SUMMARY: Bear-ly a game. Ha ha. Dumber than the average bear. Ha ha. Bear Grylls. Ha ha ha.
SCORE: Three bears out of ten.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
PLAYING TO THE CROWD: WHY CROWDFUNDING IS BOTH GREAT AND AWFUL - BY MR BIFFO
REVIEW: FIREWATCH (PC, PS4, MAC)
CYBER-X INTERVIEWS "PERRIS MOYNE"


16 Comments
Superbeast 37
11/3/2016 09:36:37 am

I agree that the backers bear some responsibility.

Not sure about "entirely".

I wouldn't go so far as to call that "victim blaming", but it is a bit unreasonable.

The problem is that crowd funding isn't the same as "investing". You are not "investing" but rather buying a product and paying up front for it to be produced.

Consumers have different expectations and apply a different level of scrutiny than potential investors would. Especially so given the consumer protections we have all grown up with.

I believe that consumers do have reasonable expectations that the developers promises will be delivered.

I'd put 80 percent of the blame with the developer.

As long as the relationship is vendor v consumer, I believe the onus is mostly with the vendor.

Crowd funding is daft. You are taking the same risks as an investor but with none of the pay offs. I've said that many times but can't get the message across as I lack a platform. Those with a platform seem complicit in stoking up hype for crowd funding projects.

I don't like regulation and government interference but maybe it is required. Then again, in this case the backers are mostly satisfied so it is everyone else that has the problem, not the developer or the backers.

Reply
Extreme Fishing
12/3/2016 03:02:38 pm

+5 Mackerels for the bear pun.

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clive peppard
11/3/2016 09:53:54 am

will swan simulator include the throttling of swans? if so, put me down for a monkey!

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Gaijintendo
11/3/2016 10:43:33 am

I just realised I have been reading PewDiePie as "PewPreDie". O feel like my version has a better narrative.

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Gaijintendo
11/3/2016 10:44:46 am

Lazy reading.... And typing...
"PewPewDie"

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thrills
11/3/2016 11:46:25 am

Hmmm, so have I. Figured it was like "pew pew!", like a laser gun noise a kid'd make or something. I guess if I ever watched his youtube I'd have known my mistake.

But jings, youtube 'personalities' are impossible to watch without wanting to glass yourself into sweet unconsciousness.

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colincidence link
11/3/2016 12:17:49 pm

I always initially read 'Die' to rhyme with 'Pie', 'cause, like, that's how the word goes.

RG
11/3/2016 11:29:10 am

Swan simulator stretch goals:

$40,000 - hiss at passing dogs
$50,000 - bully some ducks
$60,000 - eat bread flung at you by charitable folks
$70,000 - break a child's arm
$80,000 - machine gun beak and wing mounted hellfire rockets

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PanamaJoe
11/3/2016 02:24:03 pm

It's interesting that the overall review score on Steam is "Very Positive". It would seem that most of the reviews are written by Kickstarter backers. You get the impression it is not that good but people feel obliged to stand behind the thing they helped fund.

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Damon link
12/3/2016 05:55:42 am

Or you could say that they had a realistic view of what the kickstarter could achieve and feel like they got what they were paying for and what was described to them.

You'll get better reviews if you don't misrepresent something. The dev, for what it's worth, seems to have no illusions about the game and I imagine it is pitched exactly as it is on the tin. Most bad steam reviews are a result of expectation vs. delivery - in this case people perhaps expected the game to be not very good or at least knew what they were getting into and understood that.

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Matty
11/3/2016 05:17:13 pm

He's called himself fucking "PewDiePie", that's all I need to know.

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dab88
11/3/2016 08:38:57 pm

1st paragraph. Ok. 2nd paragraph LMAO! I'm leaving this comment now and I'm gonna go back and enjoy what's to come.... cause I know exactly what's gonna happen lmao! So good :D

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Dr Kank
11/3/2016 10:27:54 pm

Can you, as a bear, shit in the woods?

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Spiney O'Sullivan
12/3/2016 06:19:45 pm

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. So despite him being a man whose job is to entertain 12-year-olds by shrieking like a two-year-old, Pewdiepie is bound to scream something with a sentiment that isn't completely moronic once in a blue moon.

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Cc
22/3/2016 07:23:09 pm

To be fair it does pick up when you find the car and can start entering races. But I thought the whole pie making subplot a little silly.

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Bob Miller
1/3/2017 12:19:27 pm

How has no one referred to the right to bear arms? Or indeed playing while imagining hearing Werner Herzog's magnificent voice describing what happened to Timothy Treadwell?

"reign in your optimism" I guess you probably meant rein. Or Saturn/Dreamcast.

Reply



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