Review: Shaun The Sheep
I'm going to admit this one right up front. I have never lived on a farm, I've never experienced the joys of waking up at the crack of dawn to milk cows or collect eggs. So when I clicked Shaun the Sheep into my DS I had no idea what to expect. What I found was neither a simplified version of Harvest Moon nor an animal version of Shaun of the Dead.
Shaun the Sheep is based on the British stop-motion show of the same name, the DS games has players take on the role of the titular character in a quest to gather missing sheep. Sound exciting? What if I told you that you would come up against pigs, a watch dog named Bitzer (if you've never seen the show you won't know the dog's name) and rather annoying moles (the animal kind not the hopefully benign because it changed shape and color kind)? There really isn't much of a story to speak of, your goal is to locate fifteen sheep before the farmer gets home from running errands or line dancing or something. Ignore the story, this game is all about the exploration and the
mini-games.
More after the jump
Exploration is broken up into the following steps:
Step 1- Wander around between a few of the 10-ish locations on the farm, all of which consist of several objects that can be touched with the stylus to reveal hidden objects or in most cases, pieces of trash. More often then not a sheep will run across the screen or be hiding in plain site.
Step 2- If you see the sheep on the screen walk up to it and tap the stylus. The sheep will either come alone willingly, be somehow inaccessible, or run away.
Step 4- If the sheep runs or can't be reached, red stars will appear on your map, go to them to find the object needed.
Step 5- Retrieve object and take it back to starting location.
Step 6- Voila, you've got another sheep
Step 7- Repeat until all 15 sheep have been caught, this will take under 2 hours.
Now while the crux of this game is a point and click adventure, the monotony is broken up by eight mini-games and five micro-games. Yes, this game boasts eight mini-games such as scrubbing a sheep (followed by the uncomfortable action of blowing into the mic) and five additional micro-games like putting a key in a keyhole. There is a huge discrepancy between the depth of these games. How come at one point I'm tapping bad notes off a guitar which actually required a bit of skill, and then three minutes later I'm moving my stylus in a circle to roll up yarn? With such a small number of mini-games there is no room for any duds. Did I mention that not all eight mini-games are available during the main quest?
In order to unlock all the mini-games you have to dig around in the junk bushes in order to find chicks to return to their mother. There are twelve chicks in all and they unlock the rest of the games as well as photos of the characters to be used in slide puzzles. It was this collect-a-thon that provided the biggest headache in the entire game. See when you return the chicks to the mother hen you can only give her one at a time. After each one you have to click on your prize then leave the area and return so the next chick can be presented. Don't force me to do extra work unless you're actually going to unlock cool features like clips from the show, or a game that is actually fun to play.
Visually the game is actually quite polished. While the DS isn't the graphics powerhouse of other systems, the art style of the show, the same company behind Wallace and Gromit, translates really well on the handheld. Even with no personal knowledge of the show I was able to recognize the differences between the characters as well as their personalities in brief moments such as when Bitzer tries his hardest to keep the livestock in line using only a whistle and some wild gestures. As part of my research for this review I watched an episode of the show and afterwards I wish the game had injected more of the show's humor into the overall package. There are glimpes of comedy such as the final sheep launching mini-game but these bits are few and when the game is over so quickly, they become part of a forgettable experience.
Now don't think I'm being a stodgy old gamer who gets his jollies from trashing a kids game. When I was thinking about how I was going to write this review I thought maybe I should go easy on it for being a game clearly aimed at a younger audience. Then I thought about the games I played as a child, games that weren't dumbed down because I was a kid. I remember this Mickey Mouse game for the Nintendo that was seriously hard to beat. Those games rewarded perseverance and wasn't afraid to show kids the game over screen. I was playing the through the original Legend of Zelda when I was five and the same is true for many of you. Shaun the Sheep holds your hand from start to finish, provides a barebones amount of mini-games, and only redeeming quality is some decent visuals for the handheld. If you have kids or younger siblings who are fans of the show then this might provide a few minutes of entertainment otherwise politely inform them that they would be better off hooking up the old NES. Kids aren't stupid and developers need to stop treating them as such.
4 out of 10
TheDoctor
Posted to Hot Stuff, Reviews, Video Games on 3 October 2008
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: art co ltd, claymation, ds, review, shaun of the sheep
I think you're getting "Shaun the Sheep" and "Shaun of the Dead" mixed up. As awesome as a comical zombie-fighting sheep game would be, in this case the title is just plain "Shaun the Sheep".
And now it's been fixed and I look like an idiot. Feel free to disregard or delete my comments. =P
Thanks for the heads up. I noticed I had referred to it as "Shaun of the Sheep" the entire way through. I think it flows better my way...