Shaun the Sheep - Fleece Lightning is a reskin of Green Ant's 2011 title Sheeple Chase, but the reskin itself looks good and feels like it deserves the Shaun the Sheep name.

The game definitely has the claymation/Aardman look to it, and not just in the still images that bookend each race. The pigs, race courses and, of course, Shaun himself, all look the part. As a result, anyone looking for a game featuring Shaun will find Fleece Lightning a good title to look into.

While Shaun and his racing opponents do take center stage in the game, I was pleased to see how well the different race locations seemed to fit locations from the show. Besides simply taking cues from areas around the farm, the various items you will find on the courses, like trucks, look like they were in the show as well. Green Ant did a good job of nailing the feel of the show.

I'm sorry to say, while the game's visuals look good, it's audio is a bit nerve-wracking. The music is okay, but it quickly gets repetitive, especially since all or most of the races seem to have the same song behind them, and they all open with this odd "Home on the Range" sounding tune played by different farm animal noises. When it comes to Fleece Lightning's sound effects though, then the audio gets unbearable. While in a race, you will be bombarded by a constant stream of sound effects that range from the pigs oinking to Shaun skidding as he takes turns or various bump and bong sounds if you run into anything. Before each race is over, you are simply assaulted by a non-stop barrage of clips. In the end, I simply turned off both music and sound effects.

I was also a little disappointed when I realized that whatever music I was listening to before starting the game would turn off when it launched, even with the music and sound effects options turned off. I know this is a minor detail, but it's one that most iPhone based games seem to have mastered.

Shaun the Sheep - Fleece Lightning is a racing game, pure and simple. You will take Shaun from the top of the screen and guide him around obstacles as you attempt to edge your way past each of your opposing racers in order to get to the bottom of the track and through the gate before they do.

You don't really control Shaun's speed, but you do control which direction he goes. Fleece Lightning is pretty good about giving you a heads up on upcoming obstacles by placing arrows on the ground in order to guide you, but a majority of the races will require you to go back multiple times if you want to nab the first place rank.

Not everything on the racetrack is an obstacle though. The ground is littered with boost areas, ramps and even trampolines that will help make your race a bit more interesting than a simple downhill slalom.

Shaun the Sheep - Fleece Lightning also features a level creation mode. Here, you can work your way down a blank track and add your own obstacles, boosts and ramps. While this is a cool feature, I found no way to share these tracks, short of handing my iPhone to someone else for a while. Actually, I couldn't even find a way to truly use these tracks except for in a practice setting where I didn't even have any opponents to race against.

Shaun the Sheep - Fleece Lightning starts off with a set of fairly easy races that do a good job of introducing you to the different objects you should expect to find on the tracks. You will start off racing just a pair of pigs and you will only have to avoid some basic objects like trees. It isn't long though before the number of pigs you race increases and you find more types of obstacles. Some will stop you cold, while others just slow you down. Basically, Fleece Lightning handles its difficulty increase rather well because you will find yourself coming in first place pretty much every time in the early races, but that will become a more difficult task as you work your way through the game's different themes.

In fact, I found myself at times simply being glad I placed high enough to advance to the next race in order to keep the game going. This, of course, backfired when I hadn't collected enough apples (which is your reward based on your place in the race) in order to unlock a more difficult location. So, I had to go back to older races and try and get higher ranks in order to progress.

Shaun the Sheep - Fleece Lightning has three different options for controlling Shaun. As I stated above, you can only cause Shaun to move left or right along the screen. His speed is determined by the angle he is moving (if he is pointing straight down, he is going faster than if he is turning), whether he has hit a boost, or if he has hit anything that will slow him down or make him come to a screeching halt. Personally, I stuck with one of the three methods for most of my game playing experience.

The one I was partial to involved tilting the iPhone left or right. Another method has you using your thumbs on the edges of the screen to tell the game which way you wanted Shaun to run. Personally, I find the screen real estate to be too valuable to use this method. It might be better on an iPad, but not the iPhone. The third method has you using one finger and dragging it left or right. I basically have the same issues with single-finger method as I do with the thumbs option.

While I enjoyed Shaun the Sheep - Fleece Lightning a lot, and it's something that I could recommend for anyone looking for a casual game under the Shaun license, it isn't something that I feel a need to go back to. The only reasons you might want to retry a race is to go for a higher ranking or to beat your time and I never really felt a big draw to do either (unless I needed to in order to unlock a later level).