Cow Catcher

Genre: Misc.

Players: 1

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Review:

Cow Catcher, released on Nintendo Switch in 2021, is… odd. If I had to pick a genre for it, I suppose it would be a Flight Sim, but even that doesn’t begin to describe what sort of game this is. In fact, I’m still not entirely sure how to describe what I just played here, but I’ll give it a try.

Players take the role of a man wearing a wingsuit, wildly flapping it as he flies around the game’s fairly large levels. Yes, I know that’s not how a wingsuit works, but strap in, I’m just getting started. Players glide through the levels searching for cows, which they can then use a cursor to latch on to via a bungee cord. Upon doing so, they bring the “kidnapped” cow to one of the brightly-marked fenced areas and drop it in to capture it. Repeat until you have enough to complete the level, and try not to crash into anything.

This is a game that seems like it was borne out of fair use assets and toying around with a physics engine. I imagine the person or people who made this game trying to create a wingsuit flight game and tinkering with a tether mechanic, only to notice how bizarre this game’s physics engine makes things look when you manage to latch on to something, making the object fling about wildly. From that point, they leaned into it, trying to make it as silly as possible to go for the “humor” angle.

While the concept is mildly amusing, the gameplay gets repetitive really quickly. Search for cow, keep cursor on cow long enough to latch on to it, bring cow to fenced area, release cow, make sure cow didn’t get flung outside of the fenced area… then repeat the process enough times to complete the level. There is some enjoyment to get out of this gameplay, but it’s simple and doesn’t last long before the game’s basic shallowness sets in.

To the game’s credit, it seems to recognize this and tries to add bonus coins to collect, as well as different game modes like one where you’re trying to fly through rings, as well as a level where you’re trying crash into cows abducted by UFOs while avoiding everything else. Unfortunately, the UFO level is a snoozefest, as it’s far too easy to avoid obstacles. And the other additional content is ruined by this game’s terrible vertical controls.

Yeah, as you might guess from this game’s experimental nature, the workmanship here is very shoddy, with controls that feel stiff and unnatural, with vertical movement particularly difficult to pull off. What’s more, countless times when I tried and failed to catch a cow, my cursor disappeared from the screen and couldn’t be brought back unless I started mashing buttons. While this doesn’t sap all the fun out of playing the game, you very much get the feeling like this thing is held together by spit and chewing gum.

Finally, we should address the presentation, which is similarly amateurish, a mix of odd graphical elements that seem like some generic 3D assets tossed in together. As I alluded to before, the way the physics wonk out whenever you bungee on to a cow looks very janky and bizarre, with the cord wildly flailing all over the place and shaking the cow like a rag doll. And in terms of performance, this is an ugly game, with blurry, muddy textures, low-poly environments, and some horrifically bad pop-in. I think I’ve seen uglier games on Nintendo Switch, but not by much.

And oddly, despite these terrible visuals, this game takes up a whopping 4.05GB of space in your Nintendo Switch’s memory. I simply can’t imagine where all of that space went.

Yet despite this game’s many, many, many problems, it still has some dumb charm to it. Its concept is so bizarre, so unusual, that you have to give its creator credit for doing something unique, even if they haven’t managed to craft it into a game that you’ll want to play for more than a few minutes before putting it down, saying “well that was odd”, and never playing it again. If that sounds like it’s worth $5 to you, I suppose you could try Cow Catcher. However, do not expect anything more than that.

tl;dr – Cow Catcher is a bizarre game where players control a man in a wingsuit flying around and using a bungee cord to “kidnap” cows to bring to a fenced area. It’s certainly unique, and there’s a bit of fun to be had here, but mostly this is a simple, repetitive game that’s carried by its odd concept and it doesn’t offer much reason to play it beyond the few minutes it takes to experience its absurdity before getting bored with it and moving on.

Grade: D+

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