‘Battle Bears 1.5′ – Review

Review by Veecheech

Battle Bears is an action/shooting game ($.99) released by SkyVu Pictures updated to version 1.5 on Dec. 16, 2009.  A link to the game in the appstore-

In Battle Bears you play as a bear named Oliver who is waiting for reinforcements while fending off hordes of pink and golden lovable teddy bears.  These bears are trying to hug him, but he would prefer to shoot them.  This can be a lot of fun, because there are 8 different special weapons (other than the main gun) that can be used throughout the game.  These weapons include but are not limited to: a pot of gold which instantly kills all visible teddy bears, jelly beans fired from the antlers of a jackalope, and a laser which was a lot of fun to use fighting a boss.  There are 5 different levels with 4-5 stages apiece, with the last stage of each being a boss battle.  The bosses are hilarious, as are the cutscenes.  I had a ton of fun watching and fighting.  I will admit though that sometimes it was a bit difficult to figure out how to beat a boss, and even on easy mode the last boss was hard.

The legs of the “Bearzerker,” the second boss you face.

The graphics go along with the cutscenes of Battle Bears, they left me laughing often.  When you kill a bear, the result looks like this-

Pink bears with rainbows coming out of their heads?  Who could ask for anything more?  Not only am I happy with the death animation including the heads popping off, the weapons are animated well too.  When I first used the pot of gold, I laughed so hard that I almost dropped the ipod when every bear on the screen exploded in rainbow.  Unfortunately you do not get to use this on a boss, but that’s okay, their animations are funny too and it’s a great thing to have them on the screen for more than a second!  A few things that could be better are that when using the absolute version of control, the game would sometimes get a little bit choppy, and the interface for special weapon selection could be smoothed out a little bit.

There are two control sets.  In one, called relative control, you use your right thumb on the right side of the screen and move around to move the crosshairs, while touching with your left thumb to fire.  I found this fun, you could aim for a headshot every time.  The other method of control, deemed absolute control, allows you to tap anywhere on the screen to shoot there.  I found this to be less fun, but it was a good way to mow down bears for the last stage!

The voice acting is decent, but not great.  This hardly matters though because the ridiculous story is made obvious by the cutscenes.  The greatest part about the audio of this game is that it uses a full soundtrack (which can actually be purchased here- http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/BATTLEBEARS).  The musical selection fits the game perfectly, being very intense which is perfect for shooting little pink bears.  One of the songs I find especially funny is “The Bearber Shop Quartet” which goes along with the boss of the first stage.  The sound effects for the guns are done very well too, leading to a great auditory experience.

The story is relatively short, and could be extended some more, but the gold mine of the gameplay is the survival mode.  In this mode (unlocked after you beat story mode once) you just fight wave after wave of the toy like bears.  In between each wave you go to the general upgrade/weapon select screen, and then go right back into the fighting.  This uses Openfeint, so you can compete for the high score globally.  There also is a mode unlocked upon completion where you can pick a boss and fight it again.

I will be playing this game for a very long time, and showing it to my friends too.  I haven’t gone two minutes without laughing while playing it, so if you want a fun and good gameplay experience for $.99 this is definitely worth picking up.

For a gameplay video go here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOQUN0_zB6c

The Lite version- http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battle-bears-free/id326983920?mt=8