Charm Agony Reacts To Fan Art - The Stuff Too Spicy For YouTube!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Review: Naughty Bear

Move over Monokuma! Sling your hook Freddy Fazbear! Go fuck yourself Pom Bears. The first evil teddy bear mascot I fell in love with is none other than the downtrodden, ragged old ursine with an excessively British voice in his head who tells him to kill - Naughty Bear!

Released in 2010 for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, Naughty Bear is an arcade-style, level based action game following the psychopathic revenge killing rampage carried out by the titular character, Naughty Bear himself. 

Bullied, mocked, shunned and generally treated as an outcast by the other colourful, silly and giggly teddy bears on Perfection Island - Naughty Bear is finally driven to exacting revenge on them when they didn't invite him to Daddles’ birthday party and proceeded to point and laugh at him when he brought along a gift for him. Throwing the gift into the fire, Naughty arms himself with guns, baseball bats, knives and bear traps and sets out to punish every bear he can find.

The core gameplay revolves around an arcade-scoring system in which you can build up score multipliers, ranging from x1 all the way to x100. Being “naughty” raises your multiplier and awards you points - and being sure to vary your tactics and not overuse certain weapons or acts will award you more and more points and eventually reward you with trophies - ranking bronze, silver, gold and platinum. 

Naughty acts include assaulting bears, killing bears, trapping bears, scaring bears, destroying special objects, smashing furniture and items and doing any of the previous with witnesses. And if you can “push a bear over the edge” and cause him to literally go insane and even commit suicide - you can earn huge amounts of points.

Methods of killing bears include using traps, bludgeoning weapons, sharp weapons, guns or using level items. Each awards varying amounts of points, which naturally decrease if you use the same method twice - and the frankly hilarious British narrator will shout out gleeful killing puns every time you manage to rip out a bear’s stuffing. Killing all of the bears in the level rewards you with “Total Defluffication!” and tons of points.

Each bear on the island is unique and has their own method of dealing with Naughty. Some will choose to barricade the doors and windows or hide inside cupboards. Some will call for help - causing a squad of police bears with handguns to show up and hunt you down. Braver bears will take up arms of their own and attempt to hunt you down. Upon finding sabotaged items, bears will attempt to repair them - leaving them vulnerable to special killing blows. 

As you progress through the game and earn more trophies, you can unlock new costumes - which allow you to start with a weapon or give you improved stats such as a larger health bar or faster running speed. Some costumes also allow you to wear a disguise and blend in with the bears - allowing you to be naughty in secret. 

Each stage has 5 trophies to earn - the basic stage and 4 other challenges. These include the killer challenge, in which you are tasked with killing every bear that shows up and not allowing any to escape - the insanity challenge, in which you have to drive all of the bears over the edge - the invisible challenge, which requires you use stealth and kill bears in secret - friendly challenge, which prohibits the use of weapons against bears - and the Top Hat Challenge, which is essentially a hard mode.

Each level introduces new classes of bears, who all have favoured weapons, behaviour and costumes. These include ninja bears, armed with katanas, military bears, armed with uzis and camouflage outfits, zombie bears, who have a ridiculous amount of health but run very slowly and alien bears, insanely fast beings who carry ray guns.

In addition to the base game levels, there are also 3 DLC level packs - one is pirate themed, one is superhero themed and one is vampire themed - all of which come with their own unique characters, weapons, costumes and world objects. Still not enough variety? The game also comes bundled with a bunch of achievements that challenge you to pull off certain creative or ironic kills, kills while wearing a specific costume or wielding a specific weapon.

Despite the colourful visuals, hilarious narrator and madcap antics Naughty Bear could get up to - the game is not without fault. The camera controls are often naughtier than Naughty Bear himself and can be difficult to control, often not allowing you to see the enemies quick enough, leading to several frustrating deaths. The arcade-style scoring system can also cause some levels to feel repetitive - as you hammer out the same strategies over and over in order to achieve the highest scores. 

The one-on-one combat is also rather heavy and clunky, causing some players to favour stealthy kills or using traps in order to whittle down the bears’ health. Gun controls were a little more reliable but only when your crosshair felt like playing along and would allow you to actually hit whatever you were aiming at. I also experienced frequent crashes, which were particularly annoying as they always seemed to happen in the loading sections when moving from area to area - more often than not, just as I was about to bank my points and finish the level with a platinum trophy…

However, these little niggles didn't personally put me off the game - and I managed to nab all of the platinum trophies eventually and unlocked all of the costumes and weapons - and being an achievement whore, I happily show off my 1250 gamerscore. It's the sheer nonsensical concept of Naughty Bear that keeps me coming back for more - the hundreds of different methods of causing havoc and the frankly hilarious execution animations mixed with the ridiculously upbeat and brilliantly British narrator. 

Killing teddy bears is oddly therapeutic and is a welcome change to the insipid Xbox shoot-em-ups or the blood-soaked hack n slash games - gutting a teddy bear and yanking out all of his stuffing is certainly more of a heart-warming spectacle than decapitating a zombie or headshotting a soldier. 

So I recommend Naughty Bear to any budding psychopaths who are tired of seeing their kills bleed and would rather watch cotton wool seep through the slashed stomach of everyone's favourite childhood toy. It's ideal for obsessive players who strive for best times and high scores and is also great fun for those who like to think outside the box and like to see more off-the-wall murder techniques such as throwing teddies into a mixing vat of birthday cake or suffocating them by forcing an emergency telephone down their fuzzy throat.

Review: Hatfall

Hatfall is the 2015 official “hat-putting-on” simulator created by Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, the fast-talking Anglo-Australian behind the Zero Punctuation gaming review webseries. Developed by Yahtzee himself and Addicting Games, it started out as a free-to-play flash game on the Escapist website but was later released as the Hatters Gonna Hat edition on Steam, Android and iOS devices.

You as the player take control of Yahtzee’s little cartoon character against the typical bright yellow backdrop - and must use either a controller, the arrow keys or a mouse to move him left and right in order to collect the falling trilby hats from above. This is complicated by having several (sometimes often identical) other characters on-screen at the same time, leading to you having to work out exactly who you are controlling before positioning yourself. Also, the trilbys aren’t the only thing raining down from above - often there will be telegraph poles, street signs, televisions, fridges and cars that will impale or crush you respectively and put an end to your current streak.

The gameplay is heavily arcade-inspired and relies on the typical high-score system. Each “level,” if you like only takes several seconds to complete, and the successful catching of each hat will cause the gameplay speed to increase, more obstacles to fall and more NPCs to appear on-screen. The standard arcade-style gameplay is often broken up however by a number of unique mini-games - all of which involve poking fun at a specific gaming trope or genre of video games and naturally is doused in Yahtzee’s own abrasive and often dark humour.

Speaking of Yahtzee’s humour - the loading screens, menus, options and even pause screens all include regular nods to his work, including his typical British profanity, catchphrases and references. The NPCs also are a throwback to many of his reviews, characters such as the imp, “your mum,” and the leather-clad gimp will often show up to distract you from collecting more hats. The more hats you collect, the more of these NPCs you can unlock using the shop menu. You will also earn regular “presents,” several of which are just cosmetic or simply for novelty use, such as changing all of the loading screens to streams of constant profanity and censored text, or giving the screen a most distracting rose-tinted hue - but the vast majority of them are used to unlock the mini-game segments.

Unlocking “survival mode,” throws you into a weird tycoon-style management game in which you must make decisions as the new boss of a woodland company to increase the company’s stock of acorns. Collecting both “pictures of a horse” unlocks a mode that pokes fun at turn-based RPGs, in which Yahtzee finds himself stuck at a boring engagement party and every time he encounters an annoying person at the buffet table, must “fight them off” in the style of a random encounter battle. “Wonderful Headgear Romance” is a mockery of Japanese visual-novel style dating simulators, in which you play an unseen protagonist and attempt to seduce Hat-chan, by taking her on dates to the fairground, dog walking or you may choose to violate her immediately…

Another recurring character is “the wizard,” who will become “angered” whenever you catch a wizards’ hat on your head instead of a trilby. This causes one of a number of different effects, including covering the floor in slippery “blood rain,” which massibley reduces traction, covers the screen with a downpour of imps or flips the screen upside-down and reverses your controls. Upon calming down, the wizard will grant you one of his “boons,” which you can redeem at the end of every run - taking the form of drawing a random tarot card. These boons can grant extra lives, double your score, add more hats to your collected total or simply insult you and offer nothing as a booby prize.

To anybody who hasn’t watched a Zero Punctuation review, Hatfall will seem like a semi incoherent game with aspects seemingly thrown in at random - but to long time viewers or fans of Yahtzee Croshaw, Hatfall is both amusing and addictive. It’s the epitome of a casual or pick-up-and-play game that is common to Steam and mobile devices, but is differentiated significantly by the liberal sprinkling of humour. Personally, I could only play it for 20-40 minutes at a time before I’d get frustrated due to missing a hat or picking the wrong wizard boon - but it’s a fun little time-sink and comes with appropriately amusing and insulting achievements. It costs £3.99 on the Steam store, perhaps slightly more than the average casual game on there, especially during sales - but if you’re a long-time fan of Zero Punctuation, I highly recommend it.

Spyro 3: Year Of The Dragon - Funniest Dialogue

Today I’m going to share with you some of the funniest lines of dialogue from Spyro 3: The Year of the Dragon. Insomniac Games did an amazing job at making the original Spyro PS1 trilogy appeal to both kids and adults - and managed to include some genuinely funny dialogue without adding any adult humour to maintain its 3+ rating. One disclaimer though - this list is dialogue from the main game only - no cutscene dialogue - so unfortunately I shan’t be including this gem:

Why, you brazenly avaricious, duplicitous, larcenous ursine!

Tara
Not only is the character of Tara a full-on homage to Lara Croft - she even makes a mockery of the core gameplay of the original Tomb Raider series - “pressing switches” and “pushing boxes around” is literally all I can remember doing in the first games.

Sheila’s Haiku
The fact that all of the characters in Spooky Swamp speak in haiku is funny to begin with - but when Sheila comes out with this - I admit I LOL’d the first time I heard it. I just wasn’t expecting it!

Prince Azrael
All the way through Charmed Ridge, we’re made to believe that the Amy X Azrael scenario is a kidnapping or forced marriage - as it turns out, they’re in love and they’re eloping. What makes this scene even funnier is that Prince Azrael is a biker punk - check out his skull earring and motorbike!

Blue Hedgehog
Do I really need to explain this one? For some reason, we as gamers love it when references to other games show up, either as easter eggs, dialogue or just blatantly like Moneybags does here. It’s especially heartwarming when it’s not a negative reference to a character or series from a rival company.

Moneybags’ Haiku
The unique quirk of Spooky Swamp is that everybody there speaks in haiku - including the non-native NPCs like Sheila and Moneybags. Unlike Sheila however, Moneybags has a clear dislike of haiku, but ironically expresses this using the medium he claims to hate!

Happy Thoughts
Moneybags is such a sarcastic character in the 3rd iteration of Spyro - in the 2nd title, and his debut - he was more or less just a greedy scrooge-like character who was relatively nonplussed if Spyro were to refuse to pay his fees - as if to say, well it’s no skin off my nose if you can’t finish the game. In Spyro 3 however, he started taking things more personally and sometimes really came out with some zingers.

Hockey Players
Growing up, I used to go to watch a lot of live ice hockey games - so I knew they often got violent. Hearing Nancy say this so nonchalantly in an attempt to make Spyro feel guilty was just hilarious - though as this glorified escort quest was so bloody frustrating, watching her get whacked across the rink with a hockey stick made me LOL every time.

Another Sequel
A fine example of a developer poking fun at themselves here - and also a weird prediction for the future. At this point, Spyro was onto his 3rd main series game and was in development for a future installment, spin-offs and even crossovers with other franchises - a nice bit of foreshadowing and humour mixed together here, Insomniac.

Slick/Frozen Tongue
Hunter is my most-hated character from the Spyro universe - he’s cocky, overconfident and sometimes can be downright incompetent and obtuse for the sake of it - so seeing him get his comeuppance thanks to you failing is simply heart-warming. It’s also a really unique bet that the Yetis came up with - props to their creativity!

Someone So Purple
Not only is this quote borderline racist to purple-skinned beings, it’s also massively hypocritical - it’s being said by a PURPLE seal! Also, how does the colour of one’s skin affect one’s ability to perform tasks? Idiot seal.

Schooled 'Em
Hunter really knows how to embellish and elaborate, doesn’t he? This line is a vast improvement on his previous “dizzy one-toed sand Gnorcs” comment from a previous level. I really liked this quote and did my best to memorise it as a kid, I just thought it was genius.

Marco
In the vast majority of games, we as the protagonist are lead to believe that everything we do is for the greater good - that you couldn’t possibly be trying to reunite an estranged couple, one side of which wants nothing to do with the quest giver - and has even gone as far as to take out a restraining order!

Feel Really Cold
Another great example of programming in lines of dialogue that actually react in real-time to the things Spyro does and the changes that occur in-game. If you follow the clues to reach these gem barrels by freezing this NPC and using him as a step-stool, once he thaws, he expresses himself thusly.

Sorceress’ Butt
Oh dear Zoe. She has a point, The Sorceress is the most evil Spyro villain thus far - Gnasty Gnorc didn’t kill any dragons, he just froze them. Ripto didn’t hurt anybody, he just enslaved them. The Sorceress outright admits to planning to murder not just the dragons, but also the baby hatchlings - so insulting her appearance is sort of justified… Also, PEGI 3+ rating maintained eloquently.

Hip Hip Hooray
The Hummingbirds do their best to maintain a professional attitude to their CO and remain upright and represent the military as best as they can - but this soldier just couldn’t resist breaking the facade to express her joy.

Trampled
I really liked the attention to detail Spyro 3 added - such as characters having unique dialogue if you were to speak to them outside of the expected times - such as when they’re interacting with the world or its creatures. She has a point though - Spyro isn’t doing much to help this situation in reducing the risk she gets trampled by a water buffalo!

Moneybags Retires
One of the absolute best moments in Spyro 3 was when you got revenge on Moneybags and chased him around Midnight Mountain, flaming and charging him to get all of your extorted gems back. Spyro 2 did something similar, but just showed it through a non-interactive cutscene - Spyro 3 did it way better. To further cement his feeling of utter defeat, he resigns to retire to his most-disliked level and write haiku, which he also admitted to hating.

Cat Thing
Sometimes I forget that Hunter is a cheetah and thus is a member of the feline family. I love cats - so hearing cat-related jokes, puns and humour based around their species quirks is great. Hunter even follows through on this confession by never showing up in any underwater sections without first putting on a wetsuit to keep his fur dry!

Password
Another fine example of Moneybags being an absolute savage. I don’t even think this door even had a password, I think he was just acting as a greedy gatekeeper then rubbing your nose in it when you had no option but to cough up to get past him...

Kitchen Duty
Yep, clearly the seals found Bluto the Rhynoc as difficult as I did when I was a kid. I suffered numerous deaths at the hands of this cheating scumbag with his souped-up overpowered nuclear shark submarine. Yet when I did finally manage to destroy it using my naff little speedboat - oh, felt so good.

Pokémon Jokémon!

Allow me to share with you 40 stupid Pokémon-related jokes and puns...  These "jokes" were originally published on my FanFiction.net account in 2006. To be honest, they weren't really funny then either. :)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

What do you call a Pokémon with a cold?
- Pika-a-choo!

What is a bug Pokémon's favourite game?
- Noughts and Heracrosses!

What do you get if you cross the number 5 with a Mankey?
- A PRIME-Ape!

What do you call a Pokémon knocking at your door?
- A Rat-a-tata!

What do you call a Pokémon in a hamburger?
- A Relish-canth!

What do you call a Pokémon on a woolly hat?
- An Aipom-pom!

What do you call the Pokémon Trainer who just upset a Charizard?
- Ash!

What do you call a Pokémon eating bubblegum?
- Pika-chew!

What happened to the Nidorino who was scared of its huge opponent?
- It Nido-ran away!

What do you call the Pokémon who forgot to shave?
- Clef-hairy!

Why couldn't the Butterfree go to the dance?
- It was a Veno-moth ball!

What happened to the Machop who tried to swallow a whole Geodude?
- It Machoked!

Why did the Krabby wear a crown?
- It wanted to be KING-ler!

What do you give a constipated Pokémon?
- A Snorlax-ative!

What's a grass Pokémon's favourite pastime?
- Seedot-to-dot!

What do you call a Loudred with no ears?
- Anything you like, it can't hear you!

What do you get if you put a parrot in a washing machine?
- A Poli-whirl!

What do you get if you cross a witch with a Regice?
- A cold spell!

What do you call a just married Spinirak and Ariados?
- Newly-webs!

Why was the Caterpie thrown out of the forest?
- He was a litter-bug!

Where do Geodudes and Gravelers go for entertainment?
- To rock concerts!

Why did the Magnemite act stupid?
- He had a screw loose!

What do you call a stupid Miltank?
- A silly moo!

A Snorlax stepped on the 'speak-your-weight' machine; what did it say?
- "One at a time please."

What happened to the Exeggutor who misbehaved at school?
- It was egg-spelled!

What did the neurotic Grumpig say to its Trainer?
- "You take me for grunted."

What do you get if you cross a Miltank with a Numel?
- Lumpy milkshakes!

What do you get if you cross a Roselia with a sheep-dog?
- Collie-flowers!

How do you get a Gastly to lay flat?
- Use a spirit-level!

What do you call a sad Pokémon?
- Pika-blue!

How does a Haunter scare electric Pokémon?
- "Pika-BOO!"

Which Pokémon is related to E.T?
- E.V!

What do you call a Pokémon train?
- A Pika-choo-choo!

Why doesn't Misty like to eat at the Gloom's restaurant?
- Because they always serve an Odd-dish!

Why did Pikachu go to the bathroom?
- He need to Pi-chu!

That Bulbasaur is so dirty, the only time he cleans his ears is when he eats watermelon!

A Snorlax walks into an ice-cream parlour and orders two slices of apple pie, with four scoops of ice-cream, covered in lashings of strawberry sauce and piles of chopped nuts. "Would you like a cherry on the top?" asks the waitress. "No thanks." says Snorlax, "I'm on a diet!"

Trainer: "Nurse Joy, Nurse Joy! I think I'm a Pokémon!"
Joy: "What a load of Poké-balls!"

Trainer: "Waiter, waiter, there's a dead Volbeat in my soup!"
Waiter: "That's right sir, Volbeat aren't very good swimmers."

And finally, the worst Pokémon joke of all:
How do you get a thousand Pikachu on a bus?
- Pokémon!

Review: I Am Bread

Ah bread, one of the staple foods of the western world. Cheap, sustainable and so versatile! Whether it’s sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, toasted, grilled or dipped - it’s safe to say the vast majority of us couldn’t imagine life without bread. But how about if sentient slices of bread began breaking into your home and toasting themselves on various household appliances? Driving you to a paranoid breakdown where you end up in therapy? Well...

I Am Bread is a 2015 physics-based puzzle adventure game developed by Bossa Studios and released on PC, Xbox One, PS4 and mobile devices.

Using either the keyboard or a controller, you take control of a sentient piece of bread who desires to be toasted. Each of its four corners has a button configured to it and thus you must learn how to maneuver around using physics, balance and timing. Naturally the act of transporting bread to the toaster or other heating device is complicated by numerous hazards present throughout each stage. The obvious ones are falling to the floor, getting covered with ants, dropping into a sink full of water, getting covered with dirt, debris, spills, stains and used band aids - and my personal favourite for obvious reasons, slipping off the side of the counter into the cat litter tray.

Getting your slice of bread dirty reduces its “edibility,” a percentage bar that is present in the top-left corner of the screen. Ideally for perfect toast, you will reach the heating device with 100% edibility and proceed to toast yourself evenly on both sides, making sure you don’t overcook and burn. Upon completion of each level you will be graded from F to A++, depending on how quickly you managed to toast yourself, how edible you ended up and varying other level-based factors.

While the physics of the bread itself are fairly realistic - it’s difficult to stand up on end as you’re floppy, coating yourself in jam makes you sticky and getting covered with butter makes you slippery - most slices of bread are unable to grip to walls and surfaces in order to reach new areas and cross obstacles and hazards. At the top of the screen you have a grip meter - which depletes for as long as you are clinging to a surface or holding onto an object. If this meter runs out, you will plummet to whatever lies beneath you - often something gross or messy that will instantly knock down one’s edibility.

The bread into toast levels are only one gameplay mode however - playing as the character known as “Wholemeal” is the story mode. In addition, there are numerous other gameplay modes in which you take control of different bakery products, including a bagel, a baguette, and a crispbread cracker. There are also other modes that nod to other Steam franchises such as Team Fortress 2 and Goat Simulator and an entire mode parodying the Star Wars series.

The bagel mode is called Bagel Race and is exactly that - using the two control points on your bagel you must roll yourself through the course, which is marked by glowing checkpoints. In addition to having to master steering and maneuvering, the bagel requires some serious rhythm and patience in order to learn the best way to build up speed and complete the course in the frankly cruel times the game sets for you.

The baguette mode is known as Rampage Mode - in which you are given a few minutes to roll around and smash everything in sight - often there’s precariously placed towers of glasses and objects lined up in a domino formation just waiting for your crusty self to plow through. However unlike the bread and crispbread cracker, the baguette only has two “corners” to control, so you often end up either rolling along your side or flipping over end to end. Smashing objects consecutively leads to increasing score multipliers which naturally awards you with higher grades upon completion.

The crispbread cracker mode is known as Cheese Hunt - and instead of having an edibility meter, you have an integrity meter. The crispbread cracker can smear itself through oil, grease and ants no problem - but fall from too high of a drop or hurtle into a breakable object like a plate or butter dish and you will begin to crack and shatter until you fall to pieces. The object of this mode is to find the pieces of cheese that are hidden throughout the level. The scoring aspect is all based on time, so once you’ve explored the levels top-to-bottom and have worked out the best route to nab all of the pieces in the fastest time, the only obstacle in your way is your own fragility. The cracker controls in a very similar manner to the bread, but is a lot stiffer and rigid - and of course, will break if dropped, where the bread’s inherent sponginess cushions blows but easily absorbs liquids.

The Team Fortress 2 mode invites you to create your own Edible Sandvich Device - navigating around familiar territory and even using classic objects from the game such as the Inflatable Balloonicorn and the sleeping Heavy to avoid touching the floor and make it to the fridge where the other ingredients are.

The Goat Simulator homage replaces the baguette in the Rampage Mode, instead renaming it to RAM-page Mode - and mapping four buttons to each of the goat’s limbs. It’s a great tribute to the frankly hilarious and impossible ragdoll physics of Goat Simulator itself and the goat really has some realistic weight to it - such as the back legs being a lot sturdier and stronger to move yourself around with than the front legs. While not being able to control it directly, the goat’s trademark tongue also flops around and can grip onto objects for extra destructive fun.

The Starch Wars is a space shooter simulator very similar to the likes of Lylat Wars, only set in the I Am Bread universe and the zero-gravity mode is exactly how it sounds - you control a slice of bread who is wearing a jetpack - and all of the ordinary level items, obstacles and hazards are now floating around in the air. I’m not a fan of zero gravity mode whatsoever - call me a sucker for integrity but I demand some believable aspects to my anthropomorphic bread simulator game, thank you very much.

There is also a free roam mode, in which you can explore the levels to your heart’s content - finding Easter Eggs and secrets you may have missed on your first run through of a level as you were too busy watching the clock and clinging to the skirting board for dear life so as not to touch the dirty socks on the floor. Each level includes at least one hidden achievement and there are truly some bizarre and oddly hilarious things you can do, despite being a piece of bread. Can bread drive a car? Of course it can. Can it ride a skateboard? Yup. Can it soar through the air while stuck to the side of a rocketship? I’ll leave that one up to you to find out.

I recommend I Am Bread to anybody who is a fan of the more off-the-wall and absurd indie game scene on Steam, anyone who is a fan of hilarious and nonsensical gems like Goat Simulator, Octodad and Viscera Cleanup Detail - those of us who are spurred on by the impossible challenges set for us by fiendish developers who mock us if we score less than a B grade… For those of us who like to master peculiar control schemes and who like to think outside of the box… the bread box, that is!