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Dom Robinson reviews
Eidos Interactive Limited
Running about in a game is a far from original idea,but it’s what is at the heart of Herdy Gerdy, a new run-about-and-pick-things-up game with the camera angle twisting in specific ways game from Core, designers of the Tomb Raider series.
You play Gerdy and, as the game begins, your father won’t wake up because he’s under a spell. Setting off on an epic quest as an apprentice hunter, you get to cross an island populated by an assortment of wild creatures and have to attempt to keep them in check, hence the herding aspect of it.
If you haven’t played this type of game too often then you may well enjoy it. The graphics are cleverly animated – with Gerdy lolloping around like Bugs Bunny in any Hanna Barbera cartoon – and give a sense of fun to the whole proceedings, but for seasoned gamers it plays very similarly to Crash Bandicoot in places and just one thought will cross their mind – by, god, it’s dull!
It’s more of the same and I’ve had enough of this type of genre. Of course, some could slate me for spending many a happy hour driving round the streets of Grand Theft Auto 3 or the racetracks of Gran Turismo 3 or pumping off shot after shot in Thunderhawk: Operation Phoenix, but you can’t pretend to enjoy something you don’t and unfortunately Herdy Gerdy just draws the curtains across my eyes faster than an episode of Monarch of the Glen.
On the plus side, the game offers a 60Hz mode for those with suitably-equipped TVs and doesn’t offer a pointless ‘mono’ sound option like so many games. Why do they do that? If you have a mono TV you’ll only hear mono anyway(!)
Stereo and surround sound options are offered, the latter of which is the most pleasing to the ear, but you’ll have to like the game first before you care too much about the sonic output.
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ORIGINALITY
ENJOYMENT
0
0 OVERALL
If you’re after some more info on Eidos Interactive’s games, you can check out their official Website at www.eidosinteractive.com
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2002.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.