Barnyard
Sandbox play in a kid’s title? Surprising and enjoyable!
Tags: Barnyard Categories: Reviews, Wii Reviews
Posted by Brian Arnold on Mar 1st, 2007
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Barnyard (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
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First off, let me be honest: I hadn’t seen the movie Barnyard prior to playing this game. It turns out that the movie is a simple story of a youth growing up and developing into an unexpected leader, just set against the backdrop of a bunch of anthropomorphic farm animals. The cast is decently amusing and the movie itself is generally enjoyable as children’s fare, and worth a rental if you’ve got a kid or are feeling lighthearted and want something cute and heartwarming.
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But hey, you’re not here for the movie review — you want to know about the game. Unlike most movie games, you’re not just simply rehashing the movie’s storyline. Rather, the developers of Barnyard basically put you in the role of a new teenage cow that’s been dropped off at the farm, and you are simply integrating yourself into the life there, which includes basically a lot of partying and having fun in the form of minigames. The gameplay is surprisingly open-ended, in that you pretty much pick and choose what you want to do sandbox-style, much like the considerably more violent Grand Theft Auto series. As you complete games, you earn Gopher bucks. You can also take food items you find along the way and craft up stuff which you can sell for even more gopher bucks, which can be redeemed for bike upgrades, decor, and some other minigames. It’s light and amusing play. It would have been nice if they’d found a way to make it multiplayer, though.
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This game does exist on other consoles, and much like many other games ported to the Wii, there have been some motion controls put in place, but overall, they were implemented pretty well. If you’ve played Wii Sports and/or Wii Play, a lot of the movement in the minigames feels natural — and heck, even if you haven’t, it still just fits right and works really well. It adds a bit more to the experience than you might find on other consoles, I’d imagine, but I have admittedly not played other versions, so I can’t directly compare. My three-year-old nephew was into squirting milk all over in one particular game, and due to the motion-based controls, he was able to do so easily, which speaks volumes as to how intuitive the control schemes are.
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Graphically, it’s a spot-on reproduction of the film. Everything just looks right, and there were no visible glitches or lag anywhere. They’ve done a really good job of recreating the movie’s environment and immersing you into it. The sounds make for a decent background and fit the game well, but nothing really caught my ear and screamed out how amazing it was. If anything, it was surprising how little voice action there was from the movie, especially contrasted with some other recent movie tie-in titles. It was a little disappointing, but not that big of a deal overall.
In generally, it was actually impressive for what would normally just be blown off as some kid’s game. It was fun and immersive and amusing, and well worth the time.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Very immersive, feels like you're set in the film + Sandbox play makes it feel more open-ended, less on-rails + The graphics fit the game perfectly and honor the source |
7.6 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Lack of lots of voice from characters - No multiplayer |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Really a pretty fun game. Worth a rental at least. If you've got a kid, it's probably worth buying, especially if they enjoyed the movie. | |
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Tags: Barnyard
Posted by Brian Arnold on Mar 1st, 2007 and is filed under Reviews, Wii Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
