Available on PS2, Gamecube, Wii, and PC
Remember back in the day, when a new movie would come out in theaters and they'd shove that crap down your throat with soda commercials, shirts, cardboard cutouts, posters, toys, and giveaways? Well, they still do that, I've just learned to ignore it. What you don't see much of these days in terms of advertising is console based tie-in video games. That's why for June, I'm going to be covering 4 video games that tie-in with an animated children's property. Welcome to Licensed game month!
I'm sure some of you remember "Barnyard: The Original Party Animals". Originally a German kids film, it was picked up by Nickelodeon early in production and given the Hollywood treatment: total rewrite, popular American actors cast, marketed heavily to children despite an overwhelming amount of adult jokes, ect.
This scene happens about 18 minutes into the film. They played this all the time on Nick when I was a kid.
The film is kind of a mess, it's one of these OCD kids movies that can't decide what kind of tone to go for, so it just kinda cycles between slapstick, dirty jokes, and serious dramatic scenes. But we're not here to talk about the movie itself, let's chat about the video game tie-in released 3 days or so before the film.
So, this is one of those things where they poorly retell the plot of the movie with shitty, broken minigames, right? Well, sort of. The game starts slightly before the film does, and while the polt does take place durring the film, the story does not follow Otis. Instead the story stars YOU! (That's right, you! but if you were a weird upright cow creature) as the new arrival on Ben's farm.
That's you! The uh, black and white cow. The brown one is Sam Elliott.
Your role here on the farm is simple, you want to become the most popular, coolest party dude this side of the cornfield. You accomplish this by running around and doing a lot of busy work for the other animals on the farm and playing surprisingly well programed and fun minigames, with the goal of rising to the top of the farm's little meta-game chart by earning highscores.
Your secondary goal as you live your carefree cow life is to co-own and operate a bar for animals out of the brain-dead farmer's barn at night, which you can upgrade to attract more customers by spending coins earned from minigames and vandalism at the black market.
Weird premise for a kids game. In fact, this whole game seems oddly inappropriate for children, characters make sexual innuendos on occasion and sometimes say flirty things to the player. You're introduced to a mechanic that is frequently used in minigames where you projectile spray milk from their udders. (which male cows have too, for some reason? There are even bull characters in the game that don't have udders.) It just feels kind of disturbing to me, I dunno.
You can milk yourself once a day at each of these milk cans, complete with cocky stance and realistic liquid hitting a bucket sound.
Weirdness aside, the game's pretty good! Environments looks great, navigating the farm is fun, and the music, while annoying at first, ended up being one of my favorite parts of the game with vibrant, upbeat pop during the daytime and calm, soothing guitar riffs at night, it really helps add a light, happy atmosphere to the game.
Let's get to the real reason you came to this review though: The minigames. As advertised, a majority of game-time is spent playing short minigames. There are a fair number of them, and for the most part, they're all exceptionally well thought out and programmed, as well as pretty fun to play. Out of the 25 or so minigames I played, only one of them really pissed me off, namely the Darts game.
On the other hand, I think my favorite games are the Mud Jumper game where you attempt to stay on a platform by jumping over or kicking away a rotating pipe, similar to something you'd see on the TV show Wipeout; And the American style 8-ball billiards game, which makes the game very easy to digest for children.
Balls go without numbers so that young children stand a chance against the A.I.
There's also some other good ones in there, like the Tapper clone, some street racing, some minigolf, ect. Most of these minigames have to be played multiple times throughout the course of the game, but they're all pretty fun, and there's usually a new twist when a character asks you to play a game again.
Overall it's a pretty solid kid's game. Fun, engaging, paced well for short bursts of play (such as after school), and lengthy to boot. This game takes a few days of dedicated play to get all the way though, I was impressed. If you have a kid who, for whatever reason really likes the film Barnyard, then I think they'll enjoy this game. Hell, I enjoyed it, and I'm a grown man. Sort of.
Check back next week, I'm trying the Kids Next Door game. I bet it's gonna be a lot more shitty.