Ewe Woz Ere DX (Design/Chaos) Digital USD $4.99 / Physical Cart £35
Game title: Ewe Woz Ere DX
Game description: You take on the role of Baaary Mutton Commando - a cyborg sheep from the future who must ensure the safety of mutton-kind by defending the fields on various planets from an invasion of alien creatures and opening up gateways on each level. The game starts off with Baaary being teleported to a pasture field on Earth - armed with a basic plasma gun. You move Barry across the landscape either left or right blasting the aliens. Occasionally, destroyed enemies will drop items for you to collect, including charges which are required to open up the gateways. For every charge you collect, the charge bar at the bottom of the screen fills up. You need to fill this up in order to activate the gateway. Other items dropped by eliminated aliens include a Time Bonus that increases the time that a gateway will remain open when it is activated and weapon upgrades. When you do activate a gateway then it's time to make a run for it before the timer runs out. If you are too slow then you have to collect the charges all over again. Your cyborg sheep has an energy bar that decreases not only when you collide with an enemy but also with each shot you fire off. The basic weapons use up less energy but are less powerful while the more powerful weapons are great at quickly eliminating aliens but at a huge energy cost. If Barry runs out of energy then he loses one of his lives. Barry is able to restore his energy by standing still for a second over a patch of grass - where he will start to munch away at the tasty vegetation around him. But don’t get too greedy as having too much energy will also result in Baary’s demise. The landscape on each level is quite varied. Some of the different terrain will contain less grass patches while others will have more potholes to avoid. As you get out to beyond the fields on Earth - you will have different gravity levels to contend with as well.
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Production - 65%
65%
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Fun - 70%
70%
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Depth - 65%
65%
Summary
The enhanced version of Ewe Woz Ere is certainly an improvement over the original 4K game but you can’t help but feel that there really isn’t a full game behind its original concept. This is clearly illustrated by the fact that the end game boss battle occurs after level 6 with additional levels thrown in afterwards to fill out the game.
Production wise, the graphics and sound effects are serviceable and the controls are responsive enough to get a bit of enjoyment from the game play. It certainly can get quite hectic.
If you are looking for a pure shooter experience then you might want to look elsewhere. There is a constant need to manage your energy levels, collect charges and time extensions, which adds some depth to the game – a feature that elevates the game for me above ‘average’.
Overall
67%User Review
( votes)Pros
- 12 different landscape levels with environmental variations
- Good difficulty curve
- Responsive controls
Cons
- Somewhat disjointed with Boss level being placed after level 6
- Game design is not fully thought through
- Not for ‘shooter purists’
Game Play video link:
