14 DAY TRIAL // 
It is impossible to live in perfect harmony with your neighbours, this is a fact as old as our prehistoric ancestors sharing two adjacent caves. But, in modern times, humans living in close proximity learned that hell can be a place on Earth and can be unleashed by the lack of consideration of the other people living nearby. 17 years ago JoWood Entertainment thought this universal truth could be a good inspiration for a game that can be tremendous fun without fitting into any of the existing genres.
The result of the no longer active studio were two games that did not conquer the minds of the critics but certainly found some success among the gamers. Since then almost everybody forgot about Woody and his pain in the but neighbour, but THQ Nordic continuing the spree of remasters, released Neighbours Back From Hell. The updated version that brings under the same roof the two original iterations. Surprising is that no one asked for it, no one even thought that the original games would need a rerelease because they could not be considered a resounding success. Still, for those who have fond memories about driving your jerk of a neighbour bonkers, it might worth giving it another spin.
Except for some graphical upgrades and minor additions, the game is the same. As Woody, basically a peaceful and nice guy, you will have to exact revenge on Mr. Rottweiler, the archetype of the neighbour no one would want. The good news is the game did not change: it is like a pleasant stroll down memory lane on a sunny afternoon. The bad news is the game did not change: the puzzles that you've learned back then are the very same, so you will be presented with no new challenges. It would have been nice to have some new content or to at least have all the content that was available in the PC version.
Neighbours Back From Hell still misses the tutorials and three whole episodes. The publisher justified this choice saying that these elements were missing from the original console release. But since we are talking about a remaster it would have been the perfect opportunity to include the missing content in order to help newcomers better understand the mechanics of the game, but also to offer the fans a complete experience. As it stands the remaster feels put together hastily and due to the lack of connections and explanations among the different chapters, a big part of the charm is lost.
Those who played the originals will need no explanations, maybe just a couple of attempts to remember how to chain together the gags and how to time them correctly. But, the newcomers would have certainly benefited from the tutorials, in order to understand how can you best achieve the goal of pranking your neighbour to the edge of his sanity. The principle the game lacks to explain is actually quite simple: find every item hidden in your neighbour’s house, figure out how to use them in order to cause a series of accidents to Mr. Rottweiler, and chain the incidents together to obtain the maximum effect.
The pranks are childish but fun, nonetheless. You can use the toilet paper to clog the toilet, you can mess with the fuses to electrocute the unsuspecting victim of your mischiefs, you can use cheese to stink up the houseplant or replace the assembly instructions for the shower with a book about torture. The pranks although grow in intensity and cruelty, there are no real consequences to them, Mr. Rottweiler never ending up in the hospital even if a cigar explodes in his face. All the pranks have a common goal: to entertain the viewers of a fictitious TV show dedicated to punishing your jerk neighbours.
If you manage to chain together correctly the different tricks you will achieve a higher rating and a better score. Unfortunately, these goals do not serve a real purpose and the coins you get are not helping you in any way. The only satisfaction you can achieve is in finding out all the different ways in which you can build a living hell for your neighbour. The different pranks can be savored through a special camera option, that focuses on Mr. Rottweiler just as he is about to have walked into an incident. Sadly, if you are looking to get the highest score possible, you will not be able to enjoy the action, because the time spent watching the results of your actions is better spent setting up the next trick.
Timing is everything, that is why the only new game mechanics does not make sense. In the remastered version, some items can be retrieved from their hiding place only if you manage to complete a minigame resembling a slot machine. This is a mechanism that adds a bit of tension but does not bring any benefit in the long run. Once you know what you have to retrieve you will plan accordingly and the tension of rotating the right tiles will turn into a simple nuisance. The effort invested in this feature would have been better spent by including the missing content or introducing some leader boards to motivate players to get higher scores.
The visual style was always peculiar, somewhere between cartoons and claymation. The remastered version updates the graphics with the 16:9 aspect ratio support, better fps, and Full HD textures. The result still feels somewhat outdated, mainly due to the animations that show their age. The biggest technical issue is the imprecise control scheme. Since you do not have a cursor on the screen you have to rely on the game showing the visual prompts necessary to interact with different objects. The prompt system is rather random, especially if there are more objects in the same area, making you lose precious time pacing around to find the right angle for the prompt to show.
The Good
- The puzzles are still fun
- Enhanced graphics
- Challenging gameplay
The Bad
- Missing tutorials
- Missing levels
- Innacurate controls
Conclusion
As it stands, Neighbours Back From Hell feels like a hastily put together package that with a bit more attention could have been the remaster we did not know that we needed, but we really enjoyed, instead of the remaster no one asked for and no one will remember.
