Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse Rescue Review

Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse Rescue

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Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games

Developer: Blitz Games

Category: Adventure

Release Dates

N Amer - 11/04/2003

Official Game Website

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Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse Rescue Review

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Barbie is one of the biggest brand names in toys and has taught girls for years how to accessorize. Well, in Barbie's Horse Adventures, Wild Horse Rescue, your girls will be able to match hats, shirts, jackets, pants and boots, as well as customize the color of their horse hair, mane, nose, feet, and tail. Oh, and there is some riding involved too.

Make no mistake, this game is squarely aimed at the 5-8 year old little girl market and delivers a fun, enjoyable experience for them. Emily will get to ride one of several steeds through six different trails rounding up six foals and roping a horse at the end. The controls are very easy to master and allow the player to just get into the fun.

It is interesting, after having played GTA 3 until my fingers bled, to find some of the same game elements in Horse Adventures. No, not the Mafia drivebys and the insane car jumps, but the miniquests and the free-form 3D exploring are somewhat similar. This is actually, once you get past the Barbie license, a fun game to play with your kids. You will enjoy watching your girls grin as they hop over a fence or splash into a running stream.

The game is broken up into six trails that ask Barbie to round up the horses that have escaped from the stables. As you complete one trail, the next gate is unlocked. There are sub-quests to complete on each trail, including finding 100 coins, finding the hidden treasure chest that hold, GASP! new outfits for Barbie, and timed quests to pick up tokens.

The horse that you ride is a very temperamental beast. It is important to take time out to pat the horse on a regular basis, dismount and scratch its nose, find carrots for her to eat, and most importantly, regularly wash off the dirt back at the stable or in the nearest stream. Why is this important, you ask? Because the level of friendship the horse feels for you, as shown by the meter at the top of the screen, determines how well the horse will perform for you when running, jumping fences, or leaping gaps in the ground.

This game is not intended to appeal to the adult gamer but rather, to the little girls that have made Barbie very, very rich. If you have girls that have a hard time identifying with the blood and guts videogame violence that dominates games today, you owe it to them to pick this game up for Christmas. It is much easier to care for than a Shetland pony.

Reviewer's Scoring Details

Gameplay: 8.9
Considering the audience this is written for, I think it should be considered a hit. If you are looking for a fun game that young girls will enjoy playing for hours and hours, I cannot think of another one that is better. Vivendi has taken a 3D look at horseback riding and combined it with enough varied gameplay elements to keep kids interested for quite a while.

Graphics: 8.8
Barbie never looked so good. The animations and graphical details put into this title are really quite impressive. Fish swim in the ponds, water swirls and flows, the horses move naturally. As cartoon worlds go, Horse Adventures really does come out looking like a Saturday morning cartoon of the Monsters, Inc/Shrek variety.

Sound: 8.1
Not the best ever, but a valiant effort for including some environmental effects and ambient noise. The voice acting could use some work, but isn't terrible

Difficulty: Easy
Very playable for kids 5-12, which is the target market. The box rates the game 7 and up, but my 5 year old could easily play this and have a blast.

Concept: 9.1
9's are given for being the best game in a given genre. If you consider little girls adventure as its own genre, this is the best title I have seen for that age group. It provides a great experience for them.

Overall: 8.8
As a parent, I am always looking for games that my kids will enjoy. This game really surprised me with the overall quality they have brought to what is really an overworked, overexposed franchise. Barbie has her own clothing lines, houses, sports cars, and now her line of video games has a legitimate star.