Okay, I’ll admit it. I was never expecting great things from Neighbours from Hell. At no point did I expect it to be anything above average. I thought it was going to be another low-quality title that we’d soon be seeing in bargains bins across the world. I never, not even for a second, thought that this was going to be one of the most enjoyable games I had played in a long time.
And guess what? I was right.
Sorry if I disappointed you there. Seeing as it’s a budget title, and it could have been very much worse, I suppose I shouldn’t be too harsh. But in all honesty, this game is only worth buying if you’re into repetitive, somewhat tedious and occasionally frustrating puzzle games. Well, more repetitive, tedious and frustrating than all the other puzzle games, at least.
The game sees you wandering around pseudo-3D environments collecting items which can be used in conjunction with furniture and other objects in order to lay a trap for your neighbour (who isn’t a very nice man, apparently. He sleeps in, drinks crates of beer, and eats. Well, don’t we all?) The pranks you can pull range from swapping whipped cream for shaving foam, hiding a mousetrap in the letterbox, pouring laxative into his beer… and so on. You have to accomplish these tasks by use of a somewhat awkward, context-sensitive item system that makes it different to actually achieve your goals. Meanwhile, you keep watching your unwitting prey as he wanders the house which you’ve broken into (tut, tut) for the sake of revenge - making sure that he doesn’t see you as he walks around the house, following the same pattern every time. It’s all a question of timing – if he spots you on his repetitive circuit of the rooms, you have no choice but to either attempt to leg it, or watch helplessly as he mercilessly beats you to a bloody pulp. Without the blood, of course – this game is rated 3+ by the PEGI, after all. Admittedly, there is a touch of that ‘one more go’ factor – but the controls are so fiddly, and the gameplay is so frustrating, that you’re often dissuaded from actually attempting a level more than twice. Being a reviewer, of course, I had to – feel for me.
Some of the characters are fairly well-animated, and some of the backgrounds (once you are actually allowed to leave the neighbour’s house) are quite pretty, but the visuals on the whole are very low-key. At no point will you sit up and take notice, little will ever catch your eye. Ninja Gaiden this isn’t – but we didn’t expect it to be, did we?
Unless you enjoy the style of gameplay this game offers, there is very little to keep you coming back – not by way of story and structure, nor by variety of game modes (there are four different variations of the same game here, basically), and certainly not by entertainment value. For some obscure reason, the game is Xbox Live aware, but unless you want your ‘hardcore gamer’ buddies across the Atlantic to know that you’re actually playing this game so that they can, in their words, ‘rip’ the ‘piss’ out of you on your next Slayer match on Halo 2, you’d best keep disconnected while playing this. They say you’ll have many a laugh thanks to this game – and you will. It’s just the laughs you have will only come through your headset when you tell your buddies about your recent purchase.
In the end, I’m sorry to say that Neighbours from Hell is almost certainly not worth your time. If you have completed every other puzzle game on the Xbox and have a fetish for games of the genre, by all means, go for this. It’s only twenty pounds, after all. But when it comes down to it, there are hundreds of better games, of this genre and others, on the console. If you decide to purchase this, well – don’t say we didn’t warn you.
James Hamilton
