Flockers
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for Flockers
Much like the recent MouseCraft, which at least had a Tetris twist, Flockers struggles to move out of the shadow cast by Lemmings' brilliantly pure concept. While that adherence to a classic template yields considerable amusement, over time the features that should have lifted it higher start to become frustrating. Not only does it not move beyond the 1991 formula in any meaningful way, in the long term it struggles to match it. Flockers is not without its appeal for the patient and nostalgic, but Team 17 is ultimately just grazing on DMA's old patch when it could be striking out for pastures new.
Without flashing PETA's save-the-bat signal, it's hard not to chuckle as a flock of sheep face the spinning jaws of slaughter-by-sawblade. The animations are charming, the backdrops are pretty and there's a clever — albeit slightly aggravating — design to its sprawling, puzzle-centric stages.
Flockers is a welcome new IP from Team 17. How lovely it must have been to work on something different after so many years of putting out Worms sequels. Flockers brings new life to the A to B puzzler, with its use of new age tech and brilliant level design making it a must see for fans of the genre, and a great place to start for those who have never seen a Lemming with green hair.
The most shamefully obvious clone of recent years, but although this copies most of Lemmings' tricks it falls short in terms of both personality and addictiveness.
Flockers is a fun Lemmings throwback that provides a decent challenge. While the trial and error heavy gameplay will certainly put some off, those willing to engage their brains and reflexes will have a good time herding their flock through some downright dastardly levels – even if the experience is marred with occasional control niggles. Yes, the package is a little bit bare bones, and the gameplay never really mixes things up too much – but at this price, it isn't something that you can really bleat about.
Flockers has character and is satisfactorily challenging for the most part, but is a dish best served in bite-sized chunks. This being the case, home consoles don't necessarily feel like the optimum platform for the game, so we'd like to see those sheep herded towards tablet pastures in the future.
Overly familiar and lacking variation, Flockers still manages to embrace that one-more-go mentality with its semi-addictive blend of strategy and sheep culling.
Like a stripped back version of Worms, Flockers makes the most of its connections to Team 17's beloved series to deliver a complicated and occasionally messy action puzzler that sits perfectly on smartphones and tablets.
