Sheep

"The game I'd dreamed of owning all my life.....and it was only average!!!!"

Somewhere out there in the world there’s a group of people who spend their lives herding sheep, I’m not sure of what the official term is that they’re classed under but they do exist. And I’m sure that I’m not alone when I say that I am insanely jealous of these people and would do anything to be in their position. For years on end us “city-folk” have had a craving for the chance to run around a flock of sheep. Just to listen to their frightened and confused cries of BAA and to fall asleep at night contented, knowing fully well that we’ve done our part to make the sheep of planet Earth safer.

Well guess what!

The good people down at Empire have seen the ways people swoon at the very thought of herding sheep and have therefore released this lovely little strategy game with the imaginative name “Sheep”. This game puts you in the shoes of one of four sheep-herders, using them to guide a flock of sheepies around various courses filled with all kinds of traps. You’ll end up in all sorts of wacky places, maybe even outer space! Why is this? Because the sheep are not of this world! Be very afraid, all of you.

GAMEPLAY
Some of you may remember Lemmings, the cute little game where you helped a group of stupid, hapless creatures through a level trying to make sure they didn’t wind up dead. Sheep is pretty much the same thing, just with less interesting tools to help you out. Each level will begin with you and your sheep in a corner of the map, somewhere else in the level there will be an exit, and that’s where you need your sheep to wind up. It sounds like a very simple and easy premise, but sheep have never been known to be the calmest of creatures when placed under scrutiny, and it won’t be long until you’re staring at a group of sheep that have been hammered into the ground and uttering countless obscenities.

Guiding your sheep from here to there is a fairly straightforward process. The animals will run away from you as you approach them, so it’s just a matter of chasing them in the right direction. Things can never stay this simple for long though, you’ll soon have to contend with the miscellaneous enemies that are sprinkled throughout the levels. Some of these bad guys will do banal things, like flipping the sheep over on their backs, but when you’re dealing with electric fences or giant cicadas things can get awfully fatal for your woolly brigade. Along with these menaces you’ll have to deal with the spontaneous nature of the sheep themselves. You’ll have stray sheep breaking off left and right, whole flocks running the rung direction and getting themselves impaled by giant spikes, they’ve been designed to be as mindless and stupid as possible.

Things are made a little easier by the abilities granted to your sheep herders, they can actually do more than run around and look silly, believe it or not. If the situation is getting particularly annoying and you’re feeling frustrated, just make your little herder let out a big yell (or bark, depending on which race you’ve chosen). Not only is this more polite than screaming yourself, but it can also send your sheep moving quickly and efficiently in the direction of your choice. If a sheep needs strategic placement or has run away from the flock, you can just pick him up and carry him; and if you’d like to hold down the X button, your herder will creep along without disturbing the sheep one bit! All of these tools are essential for precise herding and make the gameplay far more interesting.

The levels have the wacky designs that one would expect from such an outrageous game concept. Each level is filled to the brim with little tools such as springs to catapult your sheep through the air or flamethrowers built into the walls to instantly disintegrate any mammal that comes their way. They can be rather long, so if you’ve got some sheep left standing at the end of these proverbial gauntlets then you’re doing well. For a game with so many cute elements, it sure can be frustrating. It’s very tricky gameplay, but in the end can also be very rewarding.

They have thrown a little two-player game into the fray for those sheep lovers who still have human contact. It’s nothing like the single player game; the only two words that can describe it are “Sheep Soccer”. You and an opponent have a flock of sheep, you have to direct them to the ball and make them kick it towards your goal. It all sounds very strange and fun, but the sheep are far too erratic here and you’ll just end up kicking it in all the wrong directions. A very limited two-player experience, but I suppose it is a little bit better than nothing.

Overall, the gameplay of Sheep gets top marks for originality but loses out in the execution of it. The general idea is great, but the final product is too fiddly and difficult to control for it to get top marks. The gameplay certainly gives Sheep some novelty value, but once you’ve gotten over the excitement of chasing the sheep around the fun can wear off very quickly. The gameplay is most likely to appeal to fans of Lemmings and its associated games.

GRAPHICS
While one would expect that a game of this calibre would display bright and exotic visuals, the graphical package that has been delivered is less than exciting. The cartoony world of sheep is undeniably there, but it has the look that new clothing can get after repeated wash cycles. A lot of the colour that one sees in screenshots on the back of the box has drained right off the screen. The general look of Sheep is a bland one, with the majority of the scenes shown on your monitor being decidedly lifeless. There is a good amount of detail depicted in the backgrounds, all kinds of cute little trees, bushes and fences being thrown into the fray with great effect. It’s a pity that the turf that these objects are planted in is usually just the one boring colour, seeing the same green or brown repeatedly in a series of levels makes for monotonous viewing. So as a whole the backgrounds and surroundings of Sheep are only average, pity.

The characters fail to bring anything exciting into the fray. The majority of them are far too small to have an impact on the screen, and it makes any little comical animations that they might be doing redundant. One thing Sheep wins points for is the clearness of it all, even with the minuscule characters running all over the place it’s easy to tell who’s who and what everybody’s doing. Altogether, the characters don’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary, and further stamp this whole graphical package under the average category.

Overall, it’s a very simple outlook that the designers have opted for with this title. It’s a great shame that they managed to make these basic visuals so poor. If only the size of everything was increased and some real colour was added, left as it is Sheep just isn’t cute enough for my liking.

SOUND
The usual fare will emanate from your TV speakers once this CD is popped in. A collection of tracks that belong to the likes of Bugs Bunny and his usual gang. The soundtrack of Sheep is a light hearted thing, offering up tunes that are sometimes slow and sometimes fast, but always bouncy and happy. Those in charge obviously felt that the music was so good that people should have the chance to listen to it in their CD players. The tunes are pretty good, but not THAT good, they’re just the same old stuff that’s been delivered to us in hundreds of other cutesy games.

There are some nice sound effects incorporated into Sheep. The constant baa-ing and bleating is certainly one of the highlights of the whole game. Every wacky little action has its own wacky little bing or boing to go with it, so there isn’t really anything bad to say about the whole sound effect thing. They blend in well with the background music, but can get annoying after a few repeated tries at the levels. The collection will probably start to grate on you about the same time that the gameplay does, how convenient.

Overall, the sounds and songs blend together fairly well to create an audio package that doesn’t break any new ground, but will duly entertain you for the majority of the lifespan of the game. It would have been nice to have something a little more original (it would have fit in nicely with the rest of this unique game), but we’re going to have to classify this one under “same old, same old”.

LIFESPAN
Sheep is not an overly long game, with only twenty or thirty levels to pass you’ll find yourself nearing the end within two or so weeks. However there certainly is some incentive to go back and play the levels again, bonus games to be found, scores to be beaten and sheep to be saved again just for the heck of it. The general gameplay will begin to get irritating after a few too many repeated efforts, so overall the lifespan would have to be described as good, but limited.

FUN FACTOR
Sheep is a quirky little title, and because of this and how fresh the game can appear next to others, Sheep is actually a lot of fun for a start. The problems in this section start to kick in about half way through the game when the difficulty is getting out of control. A single rash move can eradicate your entire flock of sheep and because of this a fair bit of aggravation can be experienced by everyone involved in the process. For fans of this “Lemmings” style of puzzle game or for people who really like the company of ewes and rams, this game will prove to be a lot of fun. It’s sadly not the case for all you normal people out there; the fun will wear off rather quickly.

CHALLENGE
Well it starts off very easy, a little too easy even. But once you’ve passed the first clump of levels or two you’ll notice that the levels became decidedly longer and infinitely more dangerous. A sharp learning curve is put on display here, and even an expert player can have trouble in later levels. As a whole it is a surprisingly tough game, if you like sheep then the continuous sight of them being mutilated by all kinds of nasty things can have a damaging impact on your psyche. One for the people who like a tough challenge.

THE FINAL PARAGRAPH
Sheep was a refreshing change next to all those other mainstream “tried and true” formulaic games that litter my collection. It certainly is a novelty game, but one with a little bit more lasting appeal than the other silly games out there generally have. It’s a perfect game for rental, relatively short and not too tough to grasp. Buying it may not be such a good idea (even though it is being sold cheaply) unless you know that you’re going to get a lot of hours out of a game like this. For most of the people out there, Sheep will amuse you, irritate the heck out of you, and end too quickly. It can’t hurt to have a small peek and check it out, but don’t expect it to be anything mind-blowing (despite the fact that Sheep are the greatest living creatures on this planet).
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GOOD POINTS
- There are sheep in the game, buy it for that reason alone
- It certainly is something different, great for those who are bored with most new releases
- It requires a certain degree of lateral thinking if success is what you want

NOT SO GOOD POINTS
- The two-player mode is rather poor
- The difficulty may prove to be a little too much for many people
- The lifespan is less than optimum
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GAMEPLAY – 7/10
GRAPHICS – 6/10
SOUND – 8/10
LIFESPAN – 6/10
FUN FACTOR – 7/10
CHALLENGE – 5/10
OVERALL – 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/10/01, Updated 05/10/01