PixlBit

This review is part of the 2014 Sh*tty Game Review Fest - read about the event here.

I hope there is a special place in Hell for Nintendo Wii shovelware developers. Gummi Bears, The Magic Medallion alone would win Storm City Games and everyone else involved with it prime oceanfront property at the sea of fire.  With platforming gameplay akin to wading through mud, and graphics similar to a bad Sega Game Gear game, this game, frankly, makes me want to dismantle the developer so they never strike again. 

Someone had to handcraft each one of the crappy 3D models of this game.  Someone had to compose the music.  Someone had to do the coding, and someone had to market it, design the box, manufacture the disc, and ship it out to stores worldwide.  All of this industry, for an inevitably horrible game that only the stupidest kid in the world would enjoy.  Did Storm City make money on this game?  Who knows?   

But let’s examine it a little more closely.  As noted before, it’s a 2.5D platformer but with little of the usual benefits of this technology.  The extent of this design is the world pivoting in another direction at certain points, and also crumbling blocks that fall out of the background with little warning, crushing Gummi Bear and leading to a devilish instant death.  The physics is unbelievably sluggish and imprecise – I’ve seen better controllers in Unity tutorials – punctuated by a double-jump so minuscule and almost irrelevant except for its ability to wrangle frustration out of the most persistent gamer. 

Most of the gameplay is inspired by other platformers: you jump on enemies' heads, you leap over pits and candy spikes, you bounce on Jell-O, ride platforms, and even get shot out of barrels like a certain other platformer that will go unnamed here (these are called “Gummi Cannons”), just to get to a higher platform floating in the air. Sometimes a ladder is used instead. Everything is haphazardly placed.

As you progress, more obstacles rise out of the woodwork, and you’ll have to avoid pistons trying to knock you into pits, and you’ll swing on half-rigid candy ropes, leaping about like Gummi Tarzan.  This is occasionally interrupted by having to find a key to open a door. Other times, a puzzle needs to be put together or a matching card game won. The first few rounds of these have only four pieces, and there's no penalty for wrong answers. Geez, how dumb do they think kids are?

Do not doubt this game has everything you hate: floaty gravity, successes ruined by unexpected instant death, and worse of all, violent Wii-Mote waggling.  This “feature” is used to blow up boulders and raise platforms, among other things, and isn’t entirely intrusive; but even at its release in 2011 it was long past its expiration date.

The difficulty of course escalates as the game goes along, but with the limited control and even less fun, Gummi Bears becomes more of a chore than anything remotely entertaining.  I suppose if it was the only game on Earth, or if it came out on Atari, I’d be quite pleased with it, but in this day and age, with great offerings like Rayman, Donkey Kong, and New Super Mario Bros (and the legions of retro-inspired indie platformers), Gummi Bears is a complete disappointment, if not an artistic crime. 

I knew going into this the game would be bad, but even with my low expectations I was disappointed.  This is indeed nothing but shovelware (and that might even be too kind a term for it) and I’d be surprised if anyone had purchased it with any clue of what they were getting into.  There isn’t a drop of cleverness in the game, and every idea in it is stolen from other titles.  The only suggestion I have is to burn it – the noxious fumes and perversely colored fire arising from this act may be the most original and entertaining thing about it.