Herdy Gerdy

In the game you play Gerdy, the son of a master shepherd. When his father is mysteriously put in a deep, unwakeable sleep just before a big herding tournament, young Gerdy must take part in his father's place. And so begins your journey to the tournament across the island, meeting many people and slowly learning how to become a master herder along the way.

When I got started, the first thing I noticed was how alive the game seemed to feel. When you start outside Gerdy's house, you will notice butterflies flying around, and rabbits hopping along, all seemingly without a care in the world. It makes it all feel very pleasant and real. The graphics are done in a very cartoony style, and while the surrounding environments look suitably attractive and coloured, the characters seemed a bit lazily designed and animated by comparison.

The actual herding part of the game is generally very well done, and often will leave you with a big smile once tasks have successfully been completed. There are many different types of animal to herd in the game, and you have to use different techniques to herd each one. To aid you in this, you get different items such as a flute to charm certain animals into following you, or a pair of shoes so you can run faster and effectively herd quicker (in this respect I found the game very reminiscent of Zelda - collecting items in order to progress). The herding part is very well done, as often you have tricky obstacles and clever level design to negociate and have to think on the fly, whilst being chased by monsters who want to eat the animals you're herding.

You meet many characters along the way who will give you help and advice. Herein though lies the first real problem. The game is very, very childish. Core (the developers) said it was not a game aimed at children, but the entire game seems very adolescent, from the presentation to the voiceovers. I am 19 and at times I actually felt the game was a bit patronising for someone my age. This all seems a little ironic though, as the content is not really for kids. It often requires lots of thinking and backtracking and I just can't see most of it appealing to youngsters. Another major fault is the ridiculously long loading times - something that really should be becoming a thing of the past, as games like Jak & Daxter or Soul Reaver have proved. You have to wait probably 30 seconds or longer for each level to load - you can't even enter a house without having to watch another long loading screen. The levels are all linked by a Super Mario World-esq map screen. Once you get to this screen, it takes maybe ten seconds to one minute to decide what level to go to next, but both entering and leaving this screen means you have to sit through another loading screen. It begins to feel like you spend half the time on it just watching the loading screen, and this somewhat shatters the worldly feel the game has (to a certain extent) - it just feels too broken up and disjointed.

The game is viewed from a third-person perspective (a la Tomb Raider), and while this is best way to view most platformers, I found the camera very erratic. You can have three default views which all serve their uses, but I found I kept having to re-adjust it, as every time you back up against a wall, or go through a small passage, the camera has to move accordingly, then I found it seemed to change position as it saw fit. The music, on the other hand, is arguably the best aspect of the game. It changes according to the situation Gerdy is in - if you are herding Doops (small, cute, pink & white creatures) you get a kind of cute, mysterious, amusing music, wearas if you're being chased by a Gromp (big, scary, bear-type monsters) you get a fast, frantic music.

I hate to put this game down, as I really was looking foward to it, but the good points of it are very good, and the bad are just too frequent and annoying. My respect still goes out to Core and Eidos for tackling a project as origional and ambitious as this, but I'm thinking they tried to do too much in one go this time. Put it this way - if you can overlook the detractors mentioned and buy a game based on gameplay alone, then add another one or maybe even two stars to this review and definately check this game out. If not, I still think you ought to rent or borrow this game if you like platformers, as it's still got some truly magic moments and is worthy of look from everyone.

If you want a charming platform game with a nice twist then pick this up now. Unmissable.