Bear with Me Review

<p>It seems as though noir detective tales are a big theme for gaming recently&period; Everyone has their take on it and now we get to see how a cute&comma; cuddly bear with a drinking problem deals with a case of a missing boy&period; <em>Bear with Me<&sol;em> brings together a young girl&comma; with a wild imagination and a brother who’s missing&comma; with a drunken&comma; retired teddy bear private eye&period; They need to work fast to solve the case as a mysterious hooded figure is after the young lady and is killing off those who stand in the way&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;akamai&period;steamstatic&period;com&sol;steam&sol;apps&sol;492630&sol;ss&lowbar;16659a8c0eefdf6f9365814a8a766eaf31fbbaf8&period;1920x1080&period;jpg&quest;t&equals;1470826707" alt&equals;"Bear with Me" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Bear With Me<&sol;em>&comma; Exordium Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><em>Bear with Me<&sol;em> is a point and click adventure&comma; set within a world heavily stylized as a classic noir film with a monotone color scheme&comma; bleak aesthetics and with everyone talking with witty metaphors and 30’s slang&period; We start off seeing a nightmarish vision of &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Paper City” on fire as our little hero awakens from her dream&period; She hears from an elderly friend&comma; who’s also a giraffe&comma; that her brother Flint has gone missing&period; Under the advice from her friend&comma; she goes to see Mr Bear&comma; a former police detective and now drunken wreck&period; They head off&comma; exploring the home of the girl in order to search for vital clues&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Visually&comma; <em>Bear with Me<&sol;em> is particularly striking with strong noir tones and cartoonish aesthetics&period; It’s nothing new from what we’ve seen before but what is interesting is the use of living&comma; breathing stuffed toys as the main cast&period; You gather the sense of our main character’s imagination playing a big role in the game’s narrative and themes&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;akamai&period;steamstatic&period;com&sol;steam&sol;apps&sol;492630&sol;ss&lowbar;44a5891d8905da7facd6aa63b0ee9ebf61f831e8&period;1920x1080&period;jpg&quest;t&equals;1470826707" alt&equals;"Bear with Me" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Bear With Me<&sol;em>&comma; Exordium Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>There is a strong sense of mystery as the narrative progresses and the plot is littered with a rich backstory to help build the world into something more immersive&period; What made the game feel more dynamic compared to most other point and click mysteries is how the game allows the player to control the main antagonist themselves&period; With this small segment you can choose whether or not to kill off a certain character which will ultimately change the story line&period; It was an interesting approach as you have the power to change certain story elements&period; This also opens up the possibility of replaying the game to see the change in narrative&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The main elements of gameplay are similar to games such as <em>Broken Sword&period;<&sol;em> You explore as you gather clues and items that will help you progress further&period; The puzzles are simple and overall the game does harbor little challenge for the lateral aspect&period; I never became stuck for more than ten minutes without realizing the answer&period; Yet the game does like to be obscure on certain puzzles&comma; or in the items you have to use&comma; without giving you any clues&period; <em>Bear with Me<&sol;em> keeps the pacing at a fluent rate&comma; which is great&period; Games like <em>Broken Sword<&sol;em> made aspects of its puzzle design or finding its solutions way too complex and at times would drag on for hours&period; It halted the interesting story and did ruin the flow&period; But <em>Bear with Me<&sol;em> does offer a great sense of exploration and puzzles without the headache-inducing complexity&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;akamai&period;steamstatic&period;com&sol;steam&sol;apps&sol;492630&sol;ss&lowbar;35aa65393cacd0cce766315e0aa9946bbb4a60ea&period;1920x1080&period;jpg&quest;t&equals;1470826707" alt&equals;"Bear with Me" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Bear With Me<&sol;em>&comma; Exordium Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>My only problem with the presentation was mostly aimed at the sub-par voice acting from our leading characters and certain supporting cast&period; They’re delivery does bring down the comedy and drama elements&comma; which are otherwise fine&period; It was completely irritating when the game projected great surrealist moments of horror&comma; only to be brought down by the dull and bored sounding reactions of the voice actors&period; It’s a shame as there is some great material here&comma; but the delivery for the most part wasn’t executed that well&period; It’s not terrible but you gather a sense that maybe the voice actors just didn’t want to put the effort into it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As mentioned&comma; there are some good moments of humor when the game breaks the fourth wall&comma; or points out some of the faults found in most point and click adventures&period; Then we get those lame&comma; tacky TV show references made even poorer by the delivery of the tired and monotone sounding voice acting&period; Along with the developers just not exploring or playing around with the noir themes&period; Sure&comma; we get a different take with having stuffed toys make up the cast&comma; but everything else feels very bog standard&comma; nothing notable of parodying noir or just being cleaver with the subject matter&period; I mean&comma; the main character is called Ted&period; E&period; Bear &&num;8230&semi;&period;&period; couldn&&num;8217&semi;t think of something better&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Bear with Me<&sol;em> does offer a good sense of mystery and with a different approach to most point and click games&period; It reminds me of a darker version of <em>Sam and Max<&sol;em> with something extremely alluring about it&period; The voice acting may not be the best and while the game is interesting to play&comma; the puzzles left much to be desired&period; The story and world itself have captured my interest to see it continue further&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong>A PC review copy of <em>Bear with Me<&sol;em> was provided by Exordium Games for the purpose of this review<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;