Some poor bastard 8 year-olds must have had Herdy Gerdy bought for them, and they must have fucking hated it.

It's maybe somewhat maudlin to mourn the loss of the UK's dominance in game development, because when they had that position, they were putting out shite like this. Core Design came off the PS1 feeling like king of the world, and jumped into the PS2 with newfound ambition. They quickly announced Tomb Raider's edgy new sequel, Angel of Darkness, four-player co-op action game, Project Eden - the most boring game I've ever played - and Herdy Gerdy.

Herdy Gerdy's like a Peter Molyneux game. That sums it up pretty well, actually. It's some wanker's dream game, but he's not much of a designer. Any concept can work as a game, but it's all in the execution. The inspiration from both Ocarina of Time and Banjo-Kazooie is pretty clear, but they've got no idea why those games worked. This is, ostensibly, a whimsical herding sim, with fantastical cartoon creatures and large, open environments. It's boring, irritating, and nothing works right. You chase little cartoon animals into pens and shield them from predators. I wish that was all it was, actually. Half the time, you're running around painfully quaint villages, talking to NPCs who take far too long to make a point. It's all voice acted, with that odd Molyneux blend of regional English accents and English voice actors adopting broad, obnoxious American ones. There's a late-90s Disney influence in the character models, looking something between Tarzan and Treasure Planet, and intricate expressive animation, but they stretch threadbare material over the whole game, awkwardly repeating elaborate 2-second loops in contexts that don't really fit.

Environments are fairly large, and that's a negative when movement doesn't feel fun. There's no combat and it doesn't play like a platformer. You probably don't remember what shite PS2 games from 2002 felt like, but imagine someone ported Banjo-Tooie's content to GTA3, stripping out all the guns and vehicles. That's nearly how bad this feels. There's plenty of Core's "innovative" controls too though, with three different perspectives to shift between and a button to shift the camera behind you in case you haven't got the hang of dual-analogue controllers yet. The thing chugs like fuck and takes ages to load. They've included a 60Hz option in the PAL version, but there's little point when it's running at 12 frames per second most the time.

Imagine this game, with all its technical issues and design oversights, and you've got to go fucking herding in it. You know herding? You've played Twilight Princess, right? That's this game's focus, and it doesn't feel nearly as robust here. The creatures are given twee names, but am I fuck remembering them. Doops and Goozers or some shit. I don't care. Sometimes a Doop will get stuck on a collision model and lose the rest of the pack. Sometimes the refresh rate plays havoc with their logic, and you'll run right through them. Sometimes you'll trap a Goozer in the wrong spot and they'll eat the already-penned Doops, and the game can fuck right off if it feels like introducing intentionally irritating aspects on top of the rest of this shit.

Most grating of all are the bells. There are 100 bells hidden in each "level" (again, these aren't platforming levels. They're patches of mostly flat, rustic countryside). If you leave a level, your bell count will reset. Collect them all and you'll unlock a behind the scenes video, inviting your admiration as you witness how a room full of wankers made Herdy Gerdy.

Fuck British game developers, man. I hope they're all bought out by heartless Chinese conglomerates.