Flockers

Game Info

I’d like to start this review by saying I really like puzzle games quite a bit.  I am always willing to give almost any puzzle game a try without question and I was given the opportunity to play Flockers for the PS4.  Team 17 are the creators of this title and I will admit I was quite anxious to play another title by them, especially since they made all those famous Worms games.  In this game you are in charge of guiding a herd or rather “flock” of sheep to safety through a steampunk style factory.  It has the same idea as Lemmings in a way, but with a little more to it.  Enough of rambling on about that, let’s go “meet the Flockers” shall we?

When I started Flockers there was no real intro aside from the movie you have to select on the map screen that shows sheep being harmed in a factory.  Upon starting the first level it already feels overwhelming, simply because there is no true forgiving tutorial when it begins.  There are caption boxes that pop up to tell you what to do on the first level or two but, the text is so small its actually unreadable and it’s not really a welcomed tutorial.  The sheep move constantly just like in a Lemmings game with you controlling actions like putting a superhero cape on them so they can scale up walls.  With all this you are trying to prevent the sheep from meeting a very bloody and painful death all while guiding them to the end, which is a tube that sucks them all up into it.  The controls are not terrible, but feel a little unexciting when you are selecting your action to help get the sheep to safety. It also doesn’t seem to hold your interest as much as it should.  There are unlockables that you can get such as, zombie sheep skins, 8-bit sheep skins and different shades of blood.  I feel those are just added in there to keep a replay factor if it’s desired from anyone who had that pure completionist type attitude.

The visuals are actually very nice with the steam punk setting, but once again the text is so darn tiny that even on my 51″ TV it seemed to be a painful struggle.  The sheep have a typical bouncy animation that doesn’t really matter since you won’t notice it all too much, especially with the constant struggle to keep them from harms way.  It has very nursery style music with a windup music box bell sounding rhythm.  All through the game you will experience many sheep emitting “baaaaahh”, pogostick bouncy noises and of course sounds of the exploding bloody mess that occurs when the sheep meet an ever so violent death.

The Recommendation

As I said before, I love puzzle games quite a lot and for some reason this specific one just didn’t do it for me.  The concept revolving around a Lemming style gameplay with the Worms menu system is great, but it just doesn’t feel as though it’s executed properly.  Flockers is actually $24.99 on the PSN and I feel that is quite a high price point for this game. It seems like it should’ve been priced a little lower for what you get and the level of polish that it has.  I truly like the concept of the levels and feel this could’ve worked out really well if it delivered it a little more.  All in all this is a decently fun puzzle game. I’m sure if Team 17 makes another Flockers in the future then it will be a huge improvement, especially since this is their first step into the puzzle type world. I would recommend checking this out when the price drops.