Sheep

for Sony Playstation

Distributed by
Empire Interactive

Price: £29.99 Players : 1 There's a bizarre plot line to this game which dictates that the titular heroes of this game haven't been sat on the grassy plains wandering about and getting sheared every so often, but that they hail from the distance of outer space, having colonised countless star systems, but because they're so stupid they've forgotten what their Earth-bound plan is and need to be guided home to Mount Mouflon in safety.

Yes, welcome to the console version of "One Man and his Dog". Chase the sheep around the arena, along the path designated by directional arrows and into their pen at the other end. However, it's not just a case of moving them around a field, but taking them through various obstacle courses avoiding deathly crabs and electrified fences, bouncing on trampolines over ponds, forcing the sheep to walk into a tank machine' that places them inside such a metallic vehicle so they can knock down brick walls along the way, picking up a radio that plays groovy tunes for the sheep to dance along to, worrying sheep even further by walking them past soldiers firing weapons, helicopters flying about and escorting them along a runway of all places just as flight 118 is heading out to Bermuda.

You can choose from four herders to control, each having their own characteristics such as their speed and how effective they are at moving the sheep. The herders are also indestructible, while your woolly friends certainly aren't. On the one hand, it can be considered a challenge to get them from A to B, but I see it more as a an annoying pain most of the time since they rarely go in the intended direction as you get behind them, walking towards in a bid to move them on, calling out as they go to keep them in check. Is it really this hard in the outside world? As our gaming tastes progress, so does the requirement for a Playstation game's graphics, but they fall rather short of the mark here and it appears to play like some dodgy game on the Atari VCS 2600 from the early 1980s, while the sound bops along pleasantly enough if not quite commanding the attention of the player. There's no doubting it's quite an original game, but it does tend to get a little on the boring side for experienced gamers, so is best suited to younger children with less demanding palettes.

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.