Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse Rescue

When you read a one-line review in the press that basically says "Worst Game Ever Made," you kind of feel it has the opposite effect on players. It sort of wants to make them play it more. Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse Rescue is one of these games to face that sort of attack by critics. Sometimes you feel that may be unfair given the underlying franchise, however.

The game is based on a set of girls' toys. Somehow, it would seemingly make the offering subject to bias critical views. There has been plenty of reviewers hating on it. But some were a bit more receptive to the latest offering in the Barbie Horse Adventures franchise. Whether it is decent or actually bad, it's probably worth checking for ourselves.

Where Have All The Horses Gone?

From a critical perspective, it's important to remember this game is made for children. This is a notion that seems to often forget. People judge the simplified mechanics and basic narrative against their complex ideals of a video game. Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse adventures adopt all those feats to tailor the game to its market.

The story revolves around horses being scared by a recent lightning storm - and it's up to Barbie to bring them back to safety. A simple basis for the trivial execution of search and rescue mechanics. Throughout the game, you will guide Barbie on her horse through the colorful environments. The player will gather the horses and tame them into returning home. That's really about it.

You won't be wrestling them - but petting them, lassoing them, and guiding them back to the stables. Not much else will happen except some cringing dialogue and secondary objective of collecting coins. As a general consensus, yes, it's pretty mundane and not very rewarding. The concept probably fits into the attention span of the child, though you sense this was unintentional.

If you consider that, BHA: WHA is fine - but any other player would not be paying top dollar for this. The only real point of interest for everyone in the customization tools for Barbie and her horse, a real surprise considering the game feels it was churned out in record time. However, the universal downside that we can all agree on. This game is broken - graphically and mechanically.

Not Deserving of the Hate, But...

Children can probably overlook how buggy the game is - but after a while, even they might get frustrated accomplishing the objectives. Critical analyses have compared this game to absolute disasters like Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. It's not as bad as that, but it really isn't good either - even for its target market.

Pros:

• Character customization is a pleasant surprise

Cons:

• Graphics are blocky and look disjointed in many areas
• Some very basic search mechanics throughout that don't even work properly
• The dialogue will get on everyone's nerves