My 12 Gifts of Christmas - 2022

My twelve gifts of Christmas,

Received year 2022:

A model Minecraft piggy

Sonic the Hedgehog PJs

10 pack of Nano Bytes

Shitloads of Little Britain

Keyboard and a mouse set

Rolos and satsumas

Mario & Rabbids

Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee

Sonic Frontiers 

Scarlet & Violet

Amazon gift vouchers

And tested positive for Covid 19!

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

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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: Cat Game: The Cat Collector!

Cat Game, also known as Cat Game: The Cat Collector! is a mobile game developed by Mino Games, released in 2019 for Android and iOS devices. At the time of writing, it has almost 2 million players - and due to being rather socially driven, allows crossplay between the Android and the iOS players. Incidentally, I'm an Android player - and the footage you're currently watching is taken from the Android version of the game, though to my knowledge, there are no major differences between them.

The gameplay revolves around a very tall tower which you can customise with furniture and decorations and is where your collected cats live. You feed your cats, the cats will go off on a delivery for you and return with either supplies, furniture, items or more cats to live in your tower. Collecting cats and items awards stars, which act as experience points and increase your overall level. Levelling up unlocks more floors in the tower and subsequently, more cats, items and items you’re able to craft. When a delivery arrives, you play a roulette game with a varying percentage chance of getting a cat or not. If you don’t get a cat, you will instead receive crafting materials such as logs, cotton, rock and quartz. These can then be crafted into items like wood, metal, bronze, ribbon etc - which can then subsequently be used to build the furniture your cats ask for. 

Coins are earned by playing mini-games, entering contests, voting on the other entries in the contest and are awarded for completing various in-game tasks. The two mini-games currently available are the aptly named Poppy Cats and Blocky Cats. Poppy Cats is a colour-matching game - you join together the coloured cat heads of the same colour to make larger heads and increase your score multiplier until you decide to pop them. Blocky Cats is similar to a free-form Tetris, in which you make either horizontal or vertical lines by fitting the coloured block shapes into a square grid. Points are awarded for making the lines and larger scores can be achieved by making multiple lines at once.

Each day, there are “contests” you are able to enter. These are essentially a brief such as “purple,” “treasure,” “old fashioned” or “intrepid,” in which you can use all of your unlocked cats, decorations, furniture and wallpaper to make a room that matches the brief. You and other players can then vote on contests. You’re given two rooms and must click which one you like better. If you can correctly guess which room has the higher percentage of user-submitted votes, you can earn coins and build up combos to earn more, starting with 5 coins per guess, up to 120 coins per guess.

Upon reaching level 10, you are able to join a club - which consists of up to 30 players. These clubs are all player-run, named and managed and range from casual to heavily competitive. You can chat with members of your club and request resources from them. There’s also a social feed of sorts that displays the latest actions of you and the other players. “Liking” these awards you purple hearts, which can be used to open the club baskets - which contain club-exclusive cats and furniture, stacks of coins or crafting materials. There is also a number of open chat rooms you can use if desired to talk to other members - but frankly this is a feature I could do without. I mute the chat constantly as almost every day I see something borderline offensive or toxic showing up on the bottom of my screen and I don’t care to see it. Apparently members can be banned for using offensive language and expressing certain opinions but it doesn’t seem to stop them. People suck, what can I say, whether you’re on 4Chan or a cutesy mobile game about collecting cats…

Several times a month, you are able to take part in various themed events - all of which emphasise working together with the other members of your club in order to earn rewards. Simply by completing in-game tasks such as unlocking cats and items, scoring points in mini-games, crafting items and delivering baskets, you will earn points. These are added together over the course of the event and unlock event-specific cats and items, coins, gems, secret keys and crafting materials. You can earn solo rewards as well as combining your points with the other members of your club to earn club rewards - these have much higher point thresholds, but often offer prizes that can't be gotten elsewhere.

Like the majority of mobile games, there are opportunities to spend real-world money to buy in-game items and/or currency. It’s not necessary for gameplay, as usual, but will make the game significantly easier or reduce the amount of waiting time or grinding time needed to complete the in-game tasks. There is also the option to become a VIP - which is a monthly subscription, costing £8.99 in the UK - but rewards you daily with coins and gems, increases the chance of collecting cats, makes you unable to be kicked from clubs due to inactivity and gives you exclusive cats and furniture on a weekly basis. Also, if you cancel it at any time, you retain any items you collected whilst being a VIP, which is nice.

In addition to the main tower, there is also the “premium” tower - which houses the cats you earn through events or unlock by using “premium keys.” These are awarded through events, crafted or given as rewards for completing floors of your tower. You can either save them up to buy a specific cat or item or spin the roulette wheel to win something at random. Some of the cats here however can only be obtained by buying them with real-world money, many of which only show up at random intervals during “flash sales,” which usually offer something like a cat, a piece of furniture, money, gems and crafting materials from anything from £5 to £15 a time. I’m doing my best to ignore the temptation - though Shelly and I simply couldn’t resist forking out to become VIP members. Oooh, look at our blue badges!

Like Neko Atsume, Cat Game is somewhat of a hands-off game - as you advance in level, your cats’ deliveries go from taking 60 seconds to taking literally 10 hours to complete. Of course, there are other things you can be doing during this time, such as playing the mini-games, working on completing earlier rooms and crafting items - but you will find yourself sitting around waiting a lot of the time; whether that be for a cat to come back with a basket, the next stage of an event to begin or waiting for your sparkles to finish crafting in the shop.

I recommend Cat Game to anybody who likes cats, obviously - especially if they’re the obsessive sort of gaming completionist who likes to collect virtual trophies - except in this case, they’re cute themed cats! Like punk cats or cats who wear cakes for hats! It’s oddly addictive and a fun game to play when you need to kill some time - though it does require a constant internet connection, either WiFi or mobile data unfortunately. You can’t even play the mini-games when offline, which is a bit of a letdown. Though I do recommend if you’re a parent who lets your kids play with your tablet or phone - to disable in-game purchasing through the Play Store, for example - as there is literally adverts to buy the in-game stuff *constantly* - and if you’re an adult who lacks willpower like me - look at your real cats and think about how many bags of Dreamies you could buy with that £10.99!

Kindergarten 2 Guide - "Things That Go Boom" Storyline

This is a little guide for the Steam title Kindergarten 2, the sequel I was desperate for ever since I played the original! Like the original, it's an indie puzzle/logic/interactive story game available on Steam. Many of the puzzles and characters' storylines require strict timing and succession of events - and I recommend you try your hardest to figure out the puzzles on your own before consulting my guide below.

With that being said, if you're pulling your hair out - here's the guide. Obviously, it contains SPOILERS.

(Click on the screenshots to enlarge them!)

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(You will need the A+ REPORT CARD, the MONSTERMON PLUSHIE and PENNY'S LASER to complete this storyline.)

School Yard

- Talk to Carla and give her PENNY'S LASER. She explains her plan.

- Talk to Cindy and ask her about you two being an item. Respond "Ouch," when she says you aren't and you'll get a tissue.

- Talk to Jerome, give him the tissue. Answer "NO" when he asks if you know why you're at this new school.

- Talk to Nugget and ask him where Lily is.

- Talk to Carla about freeing Nugget. She will give you a screwdriver. Go over to the sewer grate and free Nugget.

- Use your A+ REPORT CARD to go to the smart class.

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Morning Time

- Talk to Carla, who will explain the next part of the plan.

- Take your assessment on the computer. (It doesn't matter which prize you choose, Carla will always choose the opposite one.)

- Leave the classroom and go downstairs. Leave the school via the door on the right. Cross the school yard and go down the sewer grate.

- Squeak the MONSTERMON PLUSHIE to find Lily and Billy. You'll also unlock the [UNDERCOVER BLUE SHIRT] and the [UNDERCOVER BROWN SHIRT] outfits.

- Examine the box afterwards to find the [MYSTERIOUS PACKAGE] Monstermon card.
- Return to the science classroom by going back up the wheelchair ramp, through the door and up the stairs.

- Once back in the classroom, talk to Jerome. The bell will then ring.

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Lunch

- Talk to Carla and Jerome to hear the next part of the plan.

- Ask Buggs if he's able to start a food fight.

- Go and buy another burger from Margaret ($1.00) and give it to Buggs. Buggs will start the food fight and you're free to slip away.

- Go upstairs and knock on the right toilet cubicle. Lily will come out to talk to you.

- Go to the air vent on the right, open it with your screwdriver to sneak into the science lab. Go to the top-right corner and change the lesson plan to ROBOTICS.

- Dr Danner will come in and catch you both and send you to study hall.

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Recess

- Say nothing when Dr Danner berates you. Use one of your apples to skip ahead and he'll fall asleep.

- Go upstairs and enter the girls' bathroom. The creepy Janitor is in there. He'll send you off to do his job, either using the spray bottle or the toilet paper. Carla will do the other job.

- Once you've done that, return to the girls' bathroom and the Janitor will tell you he put it in his closet.

- Go downstairs, enter the janitors' closet and get the device.

- Return to the downstairs classroom, sit in your original seat and skip ahead.

- Pay the lab fee and go to science class.

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Science Lab

- Talk to Carla, then talk to Monty and ask him if he can deactivate the device. He will, if Carla will date him.

- Talk to Carla again and ask her if she'll date Monty. She begrudgingly agrees. Talk to Monty again and he'll give you the deactivated device.

- Place the device on the pedestal then press the red button. It'll get crushed and the day will end.

For completing this storyline you'll get the key item [CARLA'S LASER BOMB] and the [OFAKA TORNADO] Monstermon card.

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