Wynonna had a big brown beaver, and DonCorsaire has Bober. Don’t Mess With Bober is a relatively brief survival experience where you have to outlast an angry beaver from hell that has a personal vendetta against you. It sounds like a parody game, but it’s not. It’s very serious, and the first time I smiled was when I exited the game.
Your buddy has loaned his cabin in the woods to you and your partner, but the latter is taking care of their unwell father, so just you. That works as a story device as it means you’re on your own, yet the bed is simply not equipped for two adults to share. It’s more of a shed than a cabin. Anyway, you call your mate on arrival, and he tells you that the key to the property is under the mat outside the front door. The first challenge is being able to pick the key up.
The controls show binding for the keyboard and controller, as we all know that PS5 gamers always opt for the first, and it occurred to me then that Don’t Mess With Bober was a PC game first, and probably, best played on PC. Indeed, it is on PC, and in hindsight, I would have preferred that, as it was really fiddly to move the cursor with the sticks and wait for a command prompt to appear. So, this happens with your first task of obtaining the key, then cleaning up 10 pieces of trash that some meddling kids have left behind.
After you’ve done your House Flipper bit, you walk down the stream to put the rubbish in a skip of some sort, when it’s actually a wheelie bin by the water. After placing the bag inside, the wheelie bin topples over into the water and takes out a massive beaver dam. Said beaver, Bober no doubt, clocks this and gives you a filthy look before scampering away. What’s worse is the nonchalance of your character, unfazed by pushing a bin full of crap into the stream. Instead of having remorse, he enjoys a QTE game of fishing before heading to bed. In broad daylight.
He suddenly wakes to find a birthday cake floating down the stream, which is essentially a declaration of war as it explodes on him picking it up. In fact, it’s more of a finger up to opposable thumbs as this beaver can not only bake a cake, but they can spell pretty well, too. Our, ahem, hero then gets a call from his AI buddy telling him you essentially don’t mess with Bober, and he needs to access a keycode-protected room to collect… something. However, there’s no power, and in almost complete darkness, you have to wander up a hill to power up a generator.
This is where Don’t Mess With Bober falls hard. Not with the concept, the character morales or shoddy AI voiceovers, but the fundamental gameplay. After locating the item you require, Bober starts taking down trees which kill you on impact. Your job is to run back to the cabin in almost total darkness, not having a clue where to go. Again and again, the checkpoint would load with, “Damn, I’d better run!” followed by the falling of a tree and insta-death. I was not having fun. After countless attempts, I get through and find that the item I was supposed to be collecting was a shotgun that’s since been sabotaged by said beaver.
What now ensues is primal survival. With the thumbnail looking a little like it, and now the premise seeming like Cocaine Bear, Bober goes apeshit and size increases. You’re now navigating abandoned mines and exposure to ‘what’s really going on’, then playing a game of cat and mouse – or beaver – hiding in random lockers and such and such. Don’t Mess With Bober introduces a handful of ideas in fits and starts with fetch quests, QTE and stealth, but nothing is consistent other than the god-awful voiceovers. As you might imagine, I did not enjoy my time with the game, but it’s apparently very positive on Steam, so maybe a PC game first? Either way, I didn’t like it.
