Critter Round-Up has been branded by many people as an animal-themed version of the classic arcade game Qix. While that description isn't too far off the mark, there's more to it than simply boxing in area on the screen, but unfortunately it's not enough to keep this quirky WiiWare title from feeling very bland and way overpriced.
The main game in Critter Round-Up is the Adventure Mode. In it you take control of your character who has the unique ability to build fences at an unusually high rate of speed; your job is to use these fences to separate the various types of animals into groups of the same kind. The only problem with this is that these farmyard inhabitants tend to be somewhat uncooperative.
Eurogamer writes: "It's always nice to be surprised (unless the surprise involves a clown shining a torch in your face in the middle of the night) and MaBoShi is a very surprising game. It's a quiet, unassuming little thing, sitting there on the Wii Shop shelf and doing very little to alert you to the evil genius lurking behind its obscure title.
It's a compound word, you see, made up of the abbreviated Japanese words for Ball (maru), Stick (bou) and Square (shikaku), and these are the geometric shapes around which the three mini-games within revolve. Often literally. As the suffix suggests, this is a game made up of three parts - one game for each shape, all using minimal controls. The Ball game involves a constantly rotating sphere trapped in a wooden circle. Pressing the A button reverses the direction of the rotation, and you must use this basic Newtonian concept to manoeuvre the ball around the play area, hitting tiny enemies before they can escape."
A teeth-grindingly stupid premise belies a few okay gameplay ideas. But you're better off getting your animal/puzzle fix from Toki Tori.
You'll love:
- Animals have behavioral quirks
- Powerups add a little depth
- "Funny" premise
You'll hate:
- Killer chickens... yeah
- Mostly just Qix, plus fluff
- Irritating herding-work
1UP writes: "Don't expect many surprises with Critter Round-Up -- its delightfully literal title delivers the long and short of this WiiWare animal-wrangling venture, which owes an unexpected debt to 1981 arcade classic Qix. Instead of claiming territory on a playfield (like in that Taito hit), Critter Round-Up has your unnamed protagonist fencing in various animals without mixing species, all the while avoiding contact with said critters. The ability to produce fences at a rapid pace hardly tops my wish list of fantastical videogame powers, but Critter Round-Up parlays that odd premise into a pretty traditional arcade-style experience, with power-ups, a cumulative score, and a limited number of lives."
