This game gives off the impression that it's a typical newbie-ish game, and that'd be spot-on. The game's short but lopsided as hell, with severe balancing issues. It's fairly ugly. Most of its music selection is familiar to anyone who's even played just a handful of MZX games. So, why am I giving it two shiny stars instead of just one big ol' demerit?

The writing. It's so cutesy that it has to be read at least once. It's the MZX game equivalent of finding a cassette tape your younger sibling made at the age of 7, chock-full of radio plays about puppies having grand adventures. (OH NO! THE WIND! It's strong! aaaaah!) Your mommy bear gives you a bear huggie, for chrissake (on the "spiders aaah!" board, no less) and you go around insisting you'll "shave" everyone.

As for the actual game, health is at a premium due to a max health limit of 155 (that the author apparently forgot about, since characters try to give you in excess of that amount). Damage amounts are tweaked so that the earliest obstacles do somewhat lighter damage than normal, while everything else does a fair deal more. Ammo, on the other hand, is not similarly limited, and is actually readily affordable. The game loves throwing the player in open fields full of monsters; they're mostly inconsequential, though one is full of fast, two-hit spiders bound to pester. The bosses are simple and love to zoom around in one direction for periods of time (if they don't get stuck in geometry first), but the later ones throw seekers at uncomfortable rates. The game ends with a four-boss boss rush, with the last one requiring a staggering ONE-HUNDRED AND TEN shots to die. ugh.

Anyway, Bears is an interesting game. It's not a masterpiece, by any means, but I wouldn't consider it among some of the total irredeemable trash that dots the MZX archive. Two stars.