Flock XBLA Review

Written by Knight Carver Friday, 17 April 2009 10:55

When I was younger, I had a plastic maze game which you held in both hands. There was a steel ball inside, and the goal was, to manipulate the ball into a delicately placed hole within the maze, by tilting the case around. This is what Flock really boils down to. You are in control of a small spaceship and must use it to herd animals towards the mother ship, aptly named the motherflocker.

The Menu design is clean with the standard offerings of single player and multiplayer. Additional options include level sharing, a level editor and leaderboards (though at the time of publication, accessing the friends leaderboard causes your console to freeze). In an effort to ensure that players play through the entire single player campaign, items are unlocked upon completion of each stage. These items can then be used in the level editor to make your own stages which can be shared over Xbox Live. Likewise, users have the ability to download other maps that others have created. This is a great idea, but with only local multiplayer as an option, there is very little draw to create and upload your own maps. The ability to play your maps online with others (either co-op or versus) could have resulted in some guaranteed hilarity and it was a mistake that Capcom did not make this a viable option.

The single player campaign contains over 50 playable levels. Each level is timed and you have the ability to earn a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal. Levels have a quota of animals that must be abducted, though you can abduct all animals for a bonus. If you are happy to just play through each level, and you don’t care much for scores or medals, then you could play through the entire campaign in a few hours. The issue with this play style is the very limited replayability – an issue that could have been addressed with a true multiplayer option.

The spaceship that you control in each level is easy to handle. You also unlock various items as you progress like a quick boost and tractor beams that work to assist you in each abduction attempt. The animals (be it sheep, cows, chickens, pigs or a mixture of each) in each level each have their own quirks. Cows for instance can knock most items down and can stampede, whilst sheep when wet, shrink to a miniscule size allowing them to slip through fences that would otherwise block their path. Regardless, using a spaceship to try and predict the movement of one or more of each animal really isn’t that fun. Animals tend to get stuck on most objects or delve into corners or over cliffs. Some animals even get stuck on items that have been knocked over which adds to a sense of frustration.

Some levels have been mapped out to include some problem solving, but disappointingly, I found that each level could pretty much be ‘solved’ by the second try. It should be noted that the creation of devilish user-created levels is a real possibility and the level editor is well designed and user friendly.

The game has loading times at the start and end of each level. Though this may sound trivial, some levels may last only 45 seconds, so the 10 seconds or so of loading time appears quite pronounced.

Considering the lack of online multiplayer, I would have thought developers would have had single player replayability in mind. Sure, this is true in that you may wish to go back to abduct all animals from each level and get a gold medal. Annoyingly, the only immediate distinction between levels is the number. If there is a level you enjoyed or specifically wanted to re-play, then it’s a matter of going through each one until you find the one you wanted (and yes this would include sitting through loading times each time). A simple solution would have been to at least display the requirements or name of the level when highlighted.

The art style taken for the game is quite nice with a patch-work look to it. Similarly, there are no real issues with the audio, though it was not outstanding by any means.

The game boasts 10 achievements which total 200 points. Of these, you’ll probably obtain half in one full playthrough, whilst the remaining can be picked up fairly easily if you wanted to obtain maximum points.

Flock is a decent game overall, but the lack of online multiplayer or even decent problem solving levels make it hard to recommend based on the 1200 MS points price.