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Gender Bender Care Bears: Care Quest
Care Bears
PlatformerReleases: 10.01.05
Game Factory
Sirius Games
ESRB: Early Childhood
Care Bears: Care Quest
Caring, sharing, and platforming.
by 5PR0CK37 
Ah, the Care Bears. If you're anything like me and grew up in the 80s, you couldn't escape them. Sort of like the Cabbage Patch Kids and Rainbow Bright. You know, if you were a little girl. As for me, I was more interested in Legos and Garbage Pail Kids. That's not to say I wasn't aware on the more effeminate toys and cartoons. I mean, for every He-Man type cartoon, there seemed to be a She-Ra.
But I digress. I'm supposed to be talking about the game Care Bears: The Care Quests by Game Factory. The first issues comes from what seems to be a rather simple typo. Both the website of the manufacturer and the game's box art say "Care Quest" where the intro splash screen says "The Care Quests". I think the latter makes more sense, as there are many quests. The Game Factory seems to specialize in the variety of games you usually find in the discount bin at your favorite mega-store. Be they at Target near the registers as impulse buys for $9.99, or at Circuit City in wire bins. Usually found next to games other Gameboy Advance games like Elf Bowling 1&2, The Bible Game and a collection of Bionicle games. This game is really no better then aforementioned ones. But then, maybe I am not their target audience.
What the game is not: A Care Bear adventure game where you play as one of the many colorful bears in attempts to thwart the evil (or at least misunderstood) Spirit. No. That is not what this is. This is more a collection of mini games that bear some striking resemblances to others from the bygone 8-bit era. In all, there are 12 of these games. And while this may seem like a decent handful, let me tell you that I was able to complete the game in less than an hour and a half. Mostly, they're simplistic games meant for children. The first quest being a pretty basic Memory style game where you match the bears holding toys with other Bears holding like toys. This is a no-brainer. You are given more than ample time to complete the mission despite the groggy controls, and the fact that you have to wait for the Bears to exit the castle they're in after every match, all while the timer counts down. This seems like an unnecessary handicap.
The second quest involves finding various Care Bears who've decided to hide from you being clouds that resemble shrubbery. You just run around pressing the A button next to the cloud-shrubs until the other Bears pop up. The third one plays out like an upside down Bust-a-Move. You shoot hearts at your Starbuddies making them fall in love with like Starbuddies you also shot. This is a common theme throughout mind you. Shooting your friends? I don't really get it. I guess Love-a-Lot bear just has some anger issues. Whatever, I mean, I wouldn't fuck with a sentient teddy bear shooting shit out of his tummy. No way.
The fourth game involves a Lemmings-like approach. Your Starbuddy pals are haplessly walking from left to right into certain doom. Doom in the form of banana peels, tipped over ceramic planters, and bottomless pits. You know, because why would we want all 3 obstacles to be harmless? You fly above them, dropping rainbows down that act as trampolines over said pitfalls in attempts to reach the rightmost side of the level.
As if this screenshot helps!
The fifth level involves tennis. Or Pong. Or something like that. It's supposed to be 3D, and the balls bounce off imaginary or at least invisible making game play difficult at best. The characters also run like they've shit themselves while running in 6 inches of mud. To make matters worse, the fake 3D effect of the ball moving from background to foreground, right to left and back makes it impossible to actually gauge where the ball is. You can't ever seem to line up your Care Bear with the ball to catch it. Frustrating. I'd go on about the rest of the quests in the game, but at this point, I think you get the idea just fine.
Graphically, it's not great. It's not the worst I've seen, but it isn't that bad. It's bright, and colorful to be sure. Sometimes the text is a little hard to read because of the rainbow styled font they chose to use. I think the closes approximation to graphics would be the original Ducktales game on the NES. It's a bit more defined, but not much. It looks like something in the late 8-bit / early 16-bit era circa 1992. There's a fair bit of slowdown on some of the quests where there are multiple Starbuddies and/or Care Bears running around getting shot at with tummy lasers, but it's not that bad otherwise.
The sound is shit. There's no sugar coating that at all. It;s pretty much two or three looped 25 second tunes in the most basic midi arrangements possible. Seeing that these are made for very young children however, this may not be all that noticeable or important. Maybe it's the fact that I am approaching the age of thirty, and this music makes me want to jam needles in my ears Ichi the Killer style. The sound effects too are obnoxious. Voice synth so bad, the makers of Smash TV would cringe.
Mediocre graphics, frustrating controls and odious soundtrack make for a pretty dull game. Which brings me to it's replayability. Honestly, I don't know how I made it through the game's entirety. Oh, that's right, I did so because it's only about an hour to two hours long. There's no reason to replay it. No multiplayer, no hidden secrets or side quests. It's as short as it is boring. I can't really think of the person that this game is meant for. Obviously intended for the 3-7 year old market, I still can't see them having the attention span required to play this for more than 5 minutes.
My suggestion: Skip this game. Spend the $9.99 on bottle of cheap vodka instead. Your brain, even with the inevitable hangover, will thank you.
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Thanks for the interesting review, Sprock. I hadn't considered the game but feel good about not having wasted the $9.99....
And I am a mom!!!
I am glad someone else is willing to play the kids games, because I honestly dont!
Also, thanks for the laugh. I needed it.