Xbox

Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse Rescue

I really don’t see how a parent could go wrong buying Barbie Horse Adventures for their child. The game is entertaining, has a good amount of graphical detail, and the overall audio is very tolerable. It is true that there are some gameplay redundancies and a healthy amount of character interaction issues, but will a kid point to mommy and say “look at all of the clipping issues!”, or “look at all of the horseys!”? This question should have come across as rhetoric to all but the most moronic readers, and was meant to strengthen the notion that Horse Adventures will appeal very much to its target demographic. Look for this one in our editor’s list of Christmas games for 2003. Happy riding!

In conclusion, Blitz Games has done a very good job with the Barbie licence; creating a game that's true to the character and also its target audience (for instance, never patronising them with overly-simple gameplay). The game features enough levels and unlockable extras to keep the player engrossed for a long time; so Barbie and horse fans alike - male and female, young and old - will all get something out of this. And Gamestyle has learned two more things from this enjoyable adventure: 1) Barbie can carry off any outfit, and 2) horses are way cool!

Each path may have various obstacles, whether it be animals, rolling logs, or gates, which need keys to open. Horse Adventure features some minor puzzles, but nothing that a 7 year-old couldn't figure out. A handy hint is to whistle for your horse while you are far away, it will save you time, considering how slow Barbie is. In conclusion, Barbie Horse Adventure is recommended to give to your younger sister, while you are busy doing something else. An equation that could describe the hurdles in this game is animals + rolling logs = the only trouble you will find in the whole game.

What can I say? It’s a game about an icon in doll history and there isn’t much more than that. For the most part, every little girl should enjoy this if even just to change Barbie’s outfits, which is what Barbie is all about. In fact, naming this game Barbie Adventures: Changing Outfits would have made for a better ad campaign. I did enjoy it enough though to say it wasn’t completely a waste of a game. That doesn’t mean I’d spend the necessary dollars to add it to my collection though. If you have a young daughter or young sister, then it would be a nice treat to give her a Barbie that won’t die with age or wither away. This game will always be the same which I’m not sure is a good or bad thing.