It's the Wooluf!

Big K

Graphics 1/3

Playability 1/3

Addictiveness 1/3

Overall 1/3

Steve Keaton 1/3

SHEEPISH MAKER: Crystal Computing FORMAT: cassette PRICE: £5.95 "It's the Wooluf," you may recall, was the title of a truly abysmal cartoon show that escaped from the Hanna/Barbera stable sometime during the late sixties/early seventies. Gruesomely animated and horrendously unfunny, it was one of the worst post "Scooby Doo" (original season) HB offerings ever and consequently marked the end of an area for the once highly-rated fun merchants. I tell you this simply for lack of anything else to say about this flat offering from The Home of The Things. As far as I can see it's a straight reworking of Virgin's early clunker, Sheepwalk. The graphics are neater but the gameplay is strikingly similar. In it you must instruct your trusty collie to herd a flock of sheep across a bridge, through a wood and into the relative safety of the sheep pen. Meanwhile the hungry 'wooluf' patrols the forest in the hope of gobbling up some stray dinners. Clear the sheet and you're blessed with another flock of even more suicidal sheep. Woolly stuff indeed.

Personal Computer News

Lasting Appeal 1/5

Playability 2/5

Use Of Machine 2/5

Overall Value 1/5

Mike Gerrard 1/5

NAME: It's The Wooluf! SYSTEM: Any Spectrum PRICE: £6.50 PUBLISHER: Crystal Computing [redacted] FORMAT: Cassette LANGUAGE: Machine code OTHER VERSIONS: None OUTLETS: Retail/mail order WOLF AT THE DOOR You must keep the wolf from the door literally in this low-key game. OBJECTIVES You soon discover that the eponymous wooluf is merely a wolf with a funny name. You are a hard-pressed shepherd herding your flock into a pen and keeping them well away from the jaws of the wolf. IN PLAY The keyboard controls a sheepdog which has ten sheep in its charge, and the action takes place on the one screen that you see, with the sheep starting off at bottom right of the farmland scene. You must get them across the one bridge over the river and up through the woods to the pen at top right. The wolf patrols the top half of the screen in the main, moving between the various patches of woodland, though it does sometimes venture south. The graphics of the game let it down rather badly, starting with the head of the wolf that appears at the start and every time a sheep gets nabbed. This is done in bulky block graphics and is most unrealistic. The sheep look more like little white garden bugs, and they must be prize wool growers as you have to look very closely to see a head. They are also limited to two graphics characters, one facing left and one facing right, and they partly change colour should they venture too close to the river or trees. The wolf is also very shimmery, which is a disappointment when you consider that the movements of the dog are well done, with it creeping along and crouching down, but the colour overlap is awful - sheep become dark if you put the wolf near them, as does the pen, and the sound too is minimal indeed: a tip-tap when the dog trots along and an unconvincing splash should one of the silly sheep fall in the river. Another frustration is the lack of control. It's only really possible to take one sheep at a time, otherwise they run off all over the place, and even that one is hard to get going in the direction you want. There are no real instructions, and all you can do is try and vaguely chase the sheep generally in the right direction. You score points for getting sheep in the pen, but once in, they later return to the start so the game continues till all the sheep have either drowned or been eaten. The game then ends with a bald statement of your score and high score, and off you go to play again, should you have nothing more exciting to do. VERDICT A great disappointment from Crystal: counting sheep is, after all, a celebrated method for getting to sleep.

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 5/10

Memory: 16K Price: £6.50 It's The Wooluf is another of those infuriating sheepdog games where you have to guide your energetic collie round the fields, rounding up the sheep and steering them safely into the pen. Crystal Computing has provided all the usual hazards - a river, woody copses, and the big bad wolf which sneaks along between the clumps of trees waiting to jump out and devour your dwindling flock. Although it is a fast-moving implementation, there seems to be no particular reason for releasing another version of an already much-imitated game. Since there is no joystick option, nor any choice of control keys provided, It's the Wooluf seems unlikely to stand its ground against products already on the market. On the other hand, jaded shepherds with portable power units may derive some light relief from the program.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Crash

Use of Computer 48%

Graphics 55%

Playability 54%

Getting Started 60%

Addictive Qualities 48%

Value For Money 45%

Overall 44%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Crystal Computing Memory Required: 16K Retail Price: £6.50 Language: Machine code Author: Martin Buller Some time back Virgin Games released a game called Sheepwalk in which you had to guide Rex the sheepdog around and herd the sheep into a pen, avoiding various hazards and farm crops which the sheep ate. It wasn't a very good game with slow BASIC programming and unconvincing animals. It's the Wooluf! is a very similar idea, and somewhat better looking. The screen is dissected by a river towards the bottom with a bridge crossing to the top two- thirds. At the start of each game the 10 sheep are 'floating' about on the bottom right-hand corner. First they must be herded along to the left and over the bridge. Being sheep and somewhat brainless, they will tall into the river and drown if you're not careful. Once over the bridge, your dog must get them safely into the pen at the top right. The landscape in the top section is heavily wooded and the sheep wandering into the trees tend to get stuck or lost. The other problem is that the woods are prowled by a red wolf who eats sheep. Each sheep safely herded into the pen is returned to the game for the next 'life'. After four goes, all the sheep are returned for the next stage, but trees appear below the river and attract the wolf, and everything starts moving faster too. Although the sheep drown, your sheep dog is a better swimmer, and he can be moved around the screen very fast as well. Unfortunately there's nothing he can do to frighten off the wolf, so it's as well to keep the sheep out of the trees where they are most vulnerable. When a sheep falls into water a big SPLASH flashes across the screen, and between games the Wooluf winks salaciously at you. COMMENTS Control keys: N/M up/down, Z/X left/right Joystick: mpme Keyboard play: responsive, but oddly laid out keys in a straight line Use of colour: average Sound: average Skill levels: progressive difficulty (speed and extra trees) Lives: 10 sheep

Summer clouds on legs - and brainless with it.