My Horse and Me
Score: 49% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Atari Developer: Mistic Software Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1 Genre: Simulation/ Themed
Graphics & Sound: There is an explosion of kid based DS games showing up in the market. You may think this is not a huge revelation, but the interesting point to make is there is a lot of emphasis on sims and focusing on girls. Now, I am also not trying to be sexist because there are an equal amount of non-gender specific, educational sims as well that focus on similar topics. But, it is good to see a true generation of gaming girls being a part of the gaming focus. It does seem that there are a few themes that are popping up more than others. You see a lot of games focused on nurturing and growing pets, animals and whatever, so seeing another game about raising and riding horses just seems par for the course. Atari is trying their hand in this arena with My Horse & Me. With what seems like a simple formula, it should be simple to quickly publish a game like this and be rolling in the dough. Right? The graphics are extremely robotic and rigid. The static backgrounds make you feel like you are back in the 8-bit days. There is no natural flow to the animations so they just look repeated and unnatural. The photorealistic characters they use are as creepy as a shower scene with the Wiggles. The icons also have a fuzzy quality to them that seems purposeful, but I know the DS is capable of sharper resolution and doesn't need to blur edges to look good. I think if you have to go back and really concentrate to listen to the music, it does not bode well for its ability to grab and immerse the player. The chime you get every time you complete a task or move from screen to screen makes you want to turn off the sound altogether anyway. I guess they thought so as well as they included a mute feature that affects all sound in the game and not just the music.
Gameplay: In My Horse & Me, the first thing you do is choose a language. You can choose between French, English, and Spanish. There are a few examples of "Engrish" in the text and wording that make me wonder if this was not originally or directly developed in English. Or if my English is so American I can't tell it from proper English. Anyway, after you decide your language, you will then choose your rider. In a game so directly marketed to girls, I was surprised to see an option for male riders. Other than sex, you can choose hair style and color. Yea, that's it. Now select your name and horse. You will also choose the equestrian disciplines you wish to concentrate on. After you have your horse, it is time to work with it and give it a name. To do this, you use the microphone so that when you're playing in public, you can look like silly calling your DS. Once you have all you need to get started, then the real game begins. Choose to compete, work on your trust and relationship with your horse, or shop and customize. As creepy as the male characters look, the female characters you compete against look like snobs. There are many different competitions and games to compete in, most of which are the classic equestrian events we know, but a few are just for fun. The key to winning in the competition is your relationship with your horse. So work on trust and handling all you can. And of course, it isn't a competition unless you're dressed for it, so use your earned tokens in the store to get new and better equipment.
Difficulty: For this part of the review of My Horse & Me, we will be switching your regularly brewed difficulty and swapping it with a fresh cup of frustration. One of the things that I like about reviewing all types of games is that I often get to use my oldest child as a guinea pig. They never really seem to mind, as it gets them plenty of games to play. I never really feel bad about it until I find something like this game that just frustrates them and doesn't provide them with a good gaming experience. It's also frustrating for the parent because they spend most of their time trying to explain what the game doesn't. The game's activities actually felt like more of Simon Says than actually providing a simulated horse riding game. It was obscure in how to operate the interfaces and games, just leaving all parties frustrated.
Game Mechanics: My Horse & Me was advertised as a horse riding simulation and nurturing game for girls. If you track down their advertisement videos, it is insulting just how hard they pushed it for girls. Never minding that, and overlooking the ability to be a male, there is little that appealed to my daughter as far as gameplay. The interface was as hard to navigate as pre-patch VISTA. Every time you chose something, you were forced to click it again to make sure that it was what you wanted to push followed by the aforementioned annoying confirmation sounder. I (as well as my daughter) was expecting more from the actual raising and care for the horses, not to mention customization of the horses. Buying a helmet and proper equipment was good, but it was a game, and she wanted to have some freedom. It was a shopping and collecting game with money that was hard to come by, because the actual games were obscure to play at any level. I have seen many horse riding titles for children to date. This one just was not able to bring it home in the long run. I understand that this game has big sisters available for the other systems, which leaves me to think that this DS title was more of an afterthought and maybe a really expensive trailer. If the latter is the case, then they need to rethink their advertising a bit. This one broke its leg out of the gate and needs to be shown humanity before it suffers too long.
-WUMPUSJAGGER, GameVortex Communications AKA Bryon Lloyd
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