GameSpot editors' review
-
CNET editors' rating:
stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 04/14/2009
- Released on: 04/07/2009
- Originally published on GameSpot: Flock (PC) Review
You can diminish almost any game to a laughably low level by reducing it to its bare essentials: Harvest Moon's focus is manual labor, Brain Age is portable homework, and Animal Crossing is about paying rent. These games defy their lame concepts and successfully maintain an interested fan. Similarly, while herding livestock may sound like a thankless chore, Flock's delightful style and brilliant puzzles will charm and engage folks willing to game outside the box.
Flock is ridiculously cute and cuddly.
As a colorful flying saucer, your job is to corral hordes of lovable livestock to the suspiciously named Motherflocker, a towering UFO that does who-knows-what to the collected creatures. Each of the wee beasts reacts differently to your hovering menace, but Flock does a solid job of teaching you their properties as you progress. The easily spooked sheep do their best to keep away from you; cattle will knock over fences in a stampede if you follow too closely; chickens can glide across gaps but are reckless and unpredictable; and the roly-poly pigs frequently stop to roll in piles of impassable poop (yes, really). Their qualities are simplistic, but nothing in Flock is as straightforward as it seems.
Navigating your herd across Flock's 55 single-player stages in a quick and orderly fashion earns you medals. But each of the brief brainteasers has a hook, trick, or secret to be uncovered in order for you to achieve a perfect abduction score. One level in the latter half of Flock can be completed in 10 seconds flat, earning you a shiny gold prize, but perfecting it requires you to herd the massive number of extra animals that are isolated on a half-dozen islands. Another puzzle requires you to scare off nighttime predators with illuminated objects, but running the gauntlet and rushing your flock to the mothership without doing so can save substantial time. Rallying a group of animals together creates a flock, and huge herds yield massive multipliers, adding a coating of strategy. Yes, Flock is accessible, but succeeding requires a bit of brain-scratching.
Thankfully, Flock does a good job of training you one step at a time. You'll gradually learn new gameplay mechanics that keep everything feeling fresh. Just when you've figured out how to knock obstacles down, you'll start launching animals over them. When you're used to shrinking woolly beasts with water, allowing them to pass beneath fences, you'll have to force them to blindly follow a female. You'll also learn to plug holes with hay bales, crush fields to create crop circles, and build bridges to avoid dangerous, unguarded cliffs. These nuances periodically come together in a sort of final exam stage that implements everything you've learned to that point, forcing you to efficiently use your abilities together to solve an especially challenging area. It's a satisfying buildup, and you'll have a sense of fulfillment when you complete a milestone stage.
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