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Neighbours From Hell
Neighbours From Hell is a bizarre little puzzle game where you play the scheming Woody whose sole aim in life is to annoy his neighbour. While the bald, potbellied neighbour is unaware of Woody’s presence in his house everything is being filmed as a television show called yup “Neighbours From Hell”. Sneaking around avoiding the neighbour and his pets Woody must set traps for the neighbour to trigger which will then earn him viewer ratings. Each stage (which is set up like an episode of the television show) has a set number of traps and you’ll need a certain percentage of viewer ratings to progress. This continues for the three seasons (14 Episodes) of Neighbours From Hell.
I’m definitely not arguing with the originality of this title and as far as looks are concerned it has a unique feel to it as well. Everything is 2D but the characters and their environments are all pre-rendered and have lots of animations. The whole game takes place inside the grumpy neighbour’s house with new rooms being unlocked each season. It’s not a very big house though and overall the game has a bit of a Shareware feel to it. There are lots of pranks you can play on your neighbour and each has their own funny animations. The problem is while your neighbour is triggering the traps you are usually off elsewhere busy setting up the next one so you’ll miss most of the action. The game also has a time limit (don’t worry you can disable this) to keep you from dawdling too long. It does add some challenge to the game and considering how short it is you might want to leave the time limit enabled to keep you from completing the game on your first day. There is some new stuff that pops up in every episode as your neighbour celebrates his birthday, holds a barbeque, does the laundry or simply try and get some sleep. Later stages also have the parrot and dog that need to be avoided and the neighbour moves around quite a bit more as the game progresses. Don’t feel too sorry for the poor slob either as he’s a potbellied, baldheaded old man with very questionable fashion sense. Woody doesn’t look like your typical hero either but at least he’s got a twisted imagination. He’s not much of a fighter though so if the neighbour ever spots him he gets trashed pretty quick. Keeping with the television series feel of the game the soundtrack consist mostly of what sounds like Jazz tunes with a canned laugh track for when your neighbour triggers a trap. Sound effects are a bit anemic and consist mostly of your neighbour grumbling. Prepare to hear the full consequences of lacing your neighbours beer with laxatives as well. While the gameplay is quite simple there is still some scope for strategy. Your neighbour has an anger meter which fills up each time he stumbles into one of your traps and catching him in the next one before his anger meter has drained completely will earn you even more viewer points. Think of it as a type of combo which can be stringed together for maximum results. Woody can sneak to keep from alerting pets as well as hide in the closet and under the bed. Setting your traps is usually a matter of timing as you study your neighbours routine and then go to work. For some traps to work you need to disrupt his routine but figuring out what to use where is usually pretty simple. You also know where your neighbour is heading at all times through the thought balloon on the bottom of the screen. The entire interface is mouse driven and moving around setting traps is pretty much a matter of pointing and clicking. The traps are mostly funny but the variety is a bit limited and there is only so much you can do in one house. I’m not going to give away any of the trap solutions as the game is already short enough without me spoiling it. The programmers have come up with some brilliant stuff but a few more episodes would not have gone amiss. Hopefully next time you won’t be confined to just one house either. Since each episode is quite short and consist of only about six to eight pranks you’ll complete the three seasons in no time. You do get rankings depending on how well you did and going back for gold can add some longevity to the game but it’s still criminally short. In fact my reward for going back and getting gold in all three episodes was absolutely nothing which sucks somewhat. Neighbours From Hell is definitively not the type of game you see everyday and with a bit more to it could have been a winner. It’s still very fun to play but starts to wear a little thin after a while. You won’t get bored with it either but that’s only because the game is so short. Puzzle fans who enjoy an offbeat challenge will find this quirky game very entertaining but anyone with a small bit of logic will have no trouble in figuring out all the traps. I wonder how big a influence the ancient Spy VS Spy game was on this title. |
System Requirements
TAGS: Neighbours From Hell, Woody, Traps, Episodes, 2D
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