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There are some games that are so exciting that they make you stay awake all night, heart palpitating and mouth dry, as you fumble with mouse and keyboard into the wee small hours.
This is not one of those games. This is not worth a stinking drop of sweat on the puckered, hairless scrotum of one of those games.
Being an Australian, I am au fait with any number of diseases of sheep: anthrax, pulpy kidney, blackleg, barber’s pole worm, ovine Johnne’s disease, and (in New Zealand) syphilis. I strongly suspect that the sheep in this game suffer from all of these, and more. Indeed, Lambs A Leapin’ is so egregiously bad that I wonder if it’s not a plant from the Beef Marketing Board, to put people off lamb chops for life.
All of the lambs look the same. All of the lambs do exactly the same thing. They are mindless, grinning clones, designed to drive anyone who sees them into a vengeful, limb-rending frenzy among their children’s soft toys. (“I’ll wipe that friggin’ grin off your face, you sickly-sweet fluffy bastard!”) Having seen these lambs at their work, I can now confirm that Dolly the Sheep, queen of the clones, did not die of quasi-natural causes — she committed suicide when she saw version 1 of this mangled blancmange of intestinal offcuts.
Once, in a ghoulishly inspired moment among the very few that I bothered to spend at this tripe, I managed to ever so slightly liven things up by letting a lamb fall through the clouds. I imagined it hitting the ground below, exploding (thwok!) into a rack of ribs and a kilo of loin chops, and then lying still, a mangled bloody carcase with it’s eyes bulging from its shattered skull. But even that couldn’t raise a smile.
This is the ghastly product of an uninspired developer who should have his testicles placed on a brick and crushed with a splintery mallet. When I visited the Sputnik website, I broke down into tears of enraged mirth when I read the following pack of porkies: “Our games are geared toward the casual gamer that enjoys a challenge or just wants to have some fun.” There is no challenge — unless you’re Helen Keller, and even then it would be a greater challenge not to trip over the stuffed kitten on the mantelpiece. And there is most emphatically no fun.
The only possible redemption for this game is its potential in the New Zealand pornography market. Let’s see some lipstick and gumboots on those sheep! Let’s see a seductive wiggle of their hips as they leap across the clouds … For the love of God, let’s see any sign of life in this sad, cold, woolly carcase! This is not a review — it’s a veterinary post mortem.
Sputnik, you are aptly named, for like your namesake you should be shot into geostationary orbit, sans spacesuit, so that your eyes pop out and your lungs explode, and you nevermore sully the world of software games. Lambs A Leapin’, mutton dressed as lamb, you are hereby awarded a lanoline-soaked 11 and a lit cigar butt in the eye. May packs of dingos rip you limb from limb.
Posted by aussie boy at May 15, 2003 12:01 PM | TrackBack"There is no challenge -- unless you're Helen Keller, and even then it would be a greater challenge not to trip over the stuffed kitten on the mantelpiece."
Greatest. Comment. EVER.
On another note, this review proves that "aussie boy" is fake. I was always skeptical of his authenticity, since I've never heard of someone from Australia talking or writing in such a ridiculous and overdone way. But this review proves it, because it's nearly devoid of the usual overdone accent. It reads like any of the reviews published by the American reviewers on this site.
Posted by: fuddes on May 15, 2003 12:56 PMOther amazing features of this game include the stunning watch-cursor, a spinning pizza cursor 4x normal size, and the fact that the sheep bounce if even a portion of their bodies touches the bounce-pad/paddle. Unfortunately, bouncing them by the face doesn't cause their necks to snap.
Posted by: nobody on May 15, 2003 02:23 PMfuddes:
I assure you, aussie boy is quite real, and lives in Australia. Do you really think we spend hours everyday writing long, elaborate comments on our own site?
Really, it's the truth!
Posted by: Jan on May 15, 2003 02:24 PMOnce again, Perversion Tracker makes an egregious error that removes any hint of credibility in their commentary.
Sputnik was not launched into geostationary orbit, you pommy moron. Sputnik traced an elliptical orbit taking 98 minutes to circle the Earth, at an orbit ranging from 124 miles to 584 miles. Geostationary at 21,500 miles ( or roughly 36,000 kilometers for you communists).
Go back to seeing how high you can bounce Dogbolter cans off your "mates" heads, perhaps you can elevate one of those into geosync, you Roo-molesting Woomera wanna-be.
Fluff T. Bunnie, Esq.
Posted by: Fluff T. Bunnie, esq. on May 15, 2003 03:08 PMYeah, better to launch him into low-Earth orbit, so that he can entertain us with a fiery pyrotechnic display when his orbit decays and re-enters the Earth's atmosphere.
Posted by: Robo on May 15, 2003 04:07 PMGoogle for "new zealand sheep porn"
Posted by: Jonathon Smailes on May 15, 2003 04:23 PMHey, the sputnik logo is kinda cool at least.
Seriously, if I were to ever release any software, what is the best way to hide it from PvT's crack (-addled) staff of reviewers?
Posted by: cdb on May 15, 2003 06:06 PMsimply email them an announcement of the fact that you've released...
Posted by: no body on May 15, 2003 06:10 PMWhy not try bribery?
Posted by: naomi on May 15, 2003 06:17 PMHmmm, several things that should have been picked out in the review....
Despite the name, there doesn't appear to be any actual "leaping" going on in the game, merely some bouncing of sheep that appear to be lobbed from a rather weak catapult.
The high scores option - the readme file tells you that you have to register the game to enable it, yet the demo will take you there and allow you to type your name (but will not accept it). These people need a visit from the jack-booted interface police.
Animation - would this have cost too much to put into the game? Seeing their legs move as they are shoved/tossed of the first cloud would have been nice. Seeing panic-stricken expressions on their faces as they plummet to their possible demise would have been better. Seeing them give you the finger for missing them on purpose would have been great.
Posted by: no body on May 15, 2003 06:23 PMI, for one, have no doubt as to the reality of Mr. Boy. The vernacular is true to other Australians that I have known, his regard for the peculiarities of the kiwi factor is apt to his geography, and even Naomi at her Nutella-addled best would not have come up with a location like Condobolin, NSW.
Posted by: Leibnitz, N. on May 15, 2003 07:00 PMThat'll teach me to go to bed while the action's going down! I hardly know where to start -- I love you all so much!
fuddes, me old Jatz cracker, I do exist. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes. Believe it or not, we in Australia do not wander, around perpetually scratching our goolies and saying things like, "Strewth!", "Stone the crows!" or "Bugger me sideways twice, old china!" And such anachronistic Strine (which is Australian for "Australian" -- say it with an Aussie accent and you'll see what I mean) isn't always appropriate. Next week, just for you, I'll go into idiom overload, cobber!
Mr Bunnie, you pedant you! I don't give a flying frig *what* sort of orbit Sputnik was put into to! Look up "euphony" in a dictionary and soak your head in a bucket of piss! And for such a stickler for detail, you missed the mark by 16,000-odd kilometres when you called me a pommy. Oh dear! Back to the drawing board for you, my fluffy friend!
Leibnitz -- the Czech is in the mail, my friend! And you have no idea how right you are when you say it would be impossible to invent a location like Condobolin! The word "unique" doesn't begin to describe this outback outpost. Still, we get mail twice a month (when the creeks aren't up) and there's usually plenty of beer in the pubs. Can't be all bad, right?
Now bugger off, all of yez, and leave me alone! Strewth! Crikey! Strewth!
Posted by: aussie boy on May 15, 2003 07:17 PMgoogle for "american fat midget porn"
Posted by: max on May 15, 2003 07:37 PMaussieboy do you at least still say 'too right, mate'? or is that as outdated as a book on how to survive the Y2K debacle?
babelfish, me old lexicographical scholar, there's them as say it, and them as don't. Them as don't are probably in the majority, if only because the majority are urban, coastal dwellers whose language and customs are increasingly shaped by solid doses of US television programming ("Everybody Loves Raymond" my skinny arse!). "Mate" is still very much in use, however, and has even been updated in inflection, becoming, at appropriate times, a more drawn-out "Maaaaaaaaate!"
Thanks for asking ...
Posted by: aussie boy on May 15, 2003 11:33 PMWhy, how quaint! It's just like our "Dude!"
Posted by: The Valrus on May 15, 2003 11:42 PMI see an open door and I must kick:
Maaaaaaaaaaaaate! Yer gettin' a Mackq!*
*Mackq would be Aussie for "Apple Macintosh". Hahaha, those funny Aussies.
By the way, if you want to get your daily dose of sheep carnage, download this uDevGame entry:
http://www.btinternet.com/~julianreade/maffia.dmg
MAFFia features among other things:
* Dynamic sheep damage;
* Attractive flame effects;
* Four different weapons;
In other words, the perfect companion app for LambsALeapin'. Just think of those cute little lamps with rigor mortis from LAL and then tear them apart with your minigun/flamethrower/etc.
Posted by: Thuros M. on May 16, 2003 03:21 AMI'd like to see other native fauna added to a subsequent release - maybe a catapult for the right side of the screen that launches echidna, taz devils, puffy New Zealand bank managers, etc. face first into those wooley little buggers.
Some crocs at the bottom would be a nice touch.
Posted by: kecko on May 16, 2003 08:50 AMI would never download anything that involved sheep damage. This one doesn't, of course, it only involves damage to the concept of sheep. That's worrisome, but the world will keep turning.
And can I just say that at present I am not happy to be this far down in the postings? Boooo...
kecko, I like the way you think, boyo! Only thing is they're not "taz devils" -- try "Tassie devils" (prounounced "Tazzie devils").
First lesson free. Frig it up again, and you'll pay. Oh yes indeed you will ...
Posted by: aussie boy on May 16, 2003 05:21 PM