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WiiWare Review Round-Up: Round Two! (Page 2 of 2)

• By The Gamepros
• May 23, 2008 10:57 AM PST
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WiiWare Review: Critter Round-Up

by Daniel Cowan

With WiiWare's better-than-expected launch lineup behind us, Konami compiles all of our pre-launch WiiWare fears into Critter Round-Up, a limited and thoroughly awful release that practically nullifies all goodwill previously found in Nintendo's downloadable games service.

Critter Round-Up places you in the role of a farmer who must satisfy his obsessive-compulsive need to sort his animals by species. Starting in a large enclosed area, you must separate animal species by constructing a series of fences in straight lines. While it starts out simple enough, the process soon becomes frustrating, and the game never comes close to being fun at any point.

Head 'Em Up

Gameplay in Critter Round-Up resembles a mix of the arcade classics Zoo Keeper and Qix. Fence construction happens in real-time, and your animals will be wandering around as you try to fence them in. Touching any animal -- whether it be a marauding polar bear or a tiny bunny -- always results in instant death, so careful planning and construction is a must. When each species of animal is trapped within its own enclosure (or multiple enclosures consisting of one species each), the level is complete.

In its first few stages, Critter Round-Up is so slow and simplistic that you'll soon be begging for more complexity and challenge. You'll get both soon enough. Within minutes of starting the game, Critter Round-Up challenges you with so many different animal types that your slow farmer will rarely be able to keep up. Planning and strategy soon become irrelevant, since many creatures move erratically or will simply hop over any fences you build.

Move 'Em Out

By the time you get to the levels which feature animals that actively prey upon the farmer himself, your boredom will have turned into frustration. Soon, your strategy will devolve into trapping predator animals with easy prey, sacrificing the point values of eaten animals for the sake of a quick end to each level. While this strategy is obviously not part of the game's intended design, it's an unfortunate necessity in the face of such poorly constructed gameplay.

While Critter Round-Up's concept is sound, its execution is so awful that its gameplay structure falls apart within minutes of starting a new game. Its high price tag of $10 adds further insult to injury. Critter Round-Up is the worst WiiWare release so far, and bears little resemblance to the many great games that debuted in the week prior. Here's hoping that this isn't a sign of things to come.

PROS: Cute aesthetic; gameplay rooted in arcade classics; teaches that koala bears excrete deadly poison when touched

CONS: Ugly, muddy graphics; critically flawed gameplay; never fun in any way

GRAPHICS: 2.00

SOUND: 2.50

CONTROL: 2.00

FUN FACTOR: 1.00

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