Herdy Gerdy

"Herdy Gerdy is the best herding game around. Hey wait... are there other herding games around."

Ever since I was born I enjoyed chasing animals (sometimes people) around. There wasn't a specific destination to where to chase them (herd them if you like) but usually it ended up near a speeding truck or a rope tied to a tree. Now Herdy Gerdy would give me a chance to relive my memories of the past I thought (of course without the violence because if my experience with animals was made into a game it wouldn't get past the ESRB). It's not that it didn't satisfy my love for herding, it's that when I was a kid I didn't get interrupted by a camera that gets locked up onto a tree or even in open space. Still if you manage to get past the camera problems there's a satisfactory experience for every herder out there.

Story (8 over 10):
You play Gerdy, a young lad of a famous herder. Your dad was put under a spell from his competitor in a tournament that's taking place on the island. So you (Gerdy) decide to enter ''whose the best herder?'' tournament to break the spell that's been cast on your father and to fulfill your dream of becoming a master herder. Not your usual run-of-the-mill story.

Gameplay (6 over 10):
Your role as a herder is of course herding things. And there are 2 categories of things to herd:
-The hunter which is a pink animal named Gromp and usually chases after you and your flock of hunted animals. You can trap him by making him follow you to a small trap or you can make him run into a fight with another gromp or even poison him by feeding him some sort of a hegheog (Not Sonic but close).
-The hunted which are your flock of things to herd. They range from doops (which have the charachteristics of chicken) and koala like animals that hate water (but are somewhat like Tails and can fly using there... um... tails)
to duck like animals that have the charachteristics of, you guessed it, ducks, and there are also some weird ants. You need specific equipment to herd each one of these types into their respective pens and once you do you'll be able to progress to the next area (you don't have to lock all the animals, just a specific % of them).

Now why the 6 you ask since it all seems original and fun, it is because it's not (not the original part, I mean the fun part). Why I hear you ask; it is because of the camera that has an invisible controller of it's own. It locks on things, makes you misjudge jumps and the like, and it even switches between views on it's own. And it doesn't end there. When the camera makes you lose you will have to wait through the loading screen once more (which takes around three minutes to load the level). It's as if this game punishes you if you lose after tricking you into losing. You hear that my math teacher. But if this game didn't have an awful camera (couldn't they use a better camera, those new sony cameras are great :|) I would've gave the game a 10 out of 10.

Graphics (6 out of 10):
The game's graphics opt for a Disney-style movie but barely makes it, because disney movies don't have jagged edges and suffer from low framerate. Eidos and Core tried to hide the the jaggies with cell-shading but they really show. They cover the one jaggie with cel shade for one to pop up in another place. There also seems to be no special effects that we are accustomed to see in recent games and the game isn't as colourful as it pretends to be. But for every downs there's ups (I started with the downs, what can I say). The ups here are the large landscapes and the nice array of charachters (excluding Gerdy whose as nice as an ape). Charachters help drive the story and it would be a bad thing if they weren't realized this well. Still there's one more down and that's the barely more than average animation. Still when all these pros and cons clash together they strangely make an admirable game.

Sounds and Music (9 out of 10):
This is the best part of the game because they fit it well. They are the same sounds and music you hear on your tv's fairy tale shows. Sometimes I found myself playing the game just to listen to the music which is accompanied by great sounds that you'll hear on your average trip to the zoo.

Lifespan (8 out of 10):
It took me around 30 hours from start to finish (I play it cool but whose countin' the time) and I guess it'll take some more to get the 100 bells that are scattered around every level (If you collect all 100 bells you can trade them for prizes that involve the making-of of the game and the like). But once you're done with that I'll doubt you'll be putting it in there again even if just to show your friends how long your system's breath can last during loading times.

Overall (6 out of 10):
If you were into chasing stuff and herding them then you really owe it to yourself to try out this game but otherwise maybe a night's rent will do you and the game some sort of justice.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/13/02, Updated 06/13/02