Game Review: Barbie Horse Adventures Mystery Ride
Rated by 4 members
What Parents Should Know
This Barbie software encourages girls to solve logic puzzles
in addition to doing typical Barbie dress-up-type things. The
adventure story is quite good and the virtual horseback riding
is amazingly realistic. However, some parents won't like the
fact that Barbie wears such form-fitting clothes.
Common Sense Media Review
Clip-clop, clip-clop--hooves pound the ground as the scenery
whizzes by.
In Barbie Horse Adventures Mystery Ride, girls ride a virtual horse to help Barbie solve a mystery.
Barbie's friend, Teresa, is getting ready to compete in a championship horse show. But, just hours before the show, someone steals Teresa's prize show horse, Lucky. Barbie volunteers to ride out to look for Lucky.
Players direct Barbie's horseback riding by using the arrow keys. They select which paths to ride, and determine whether the horse walks, trots, or canters.
As Barbie rides through the forest, prairie town, and desert gardens, she looks for clues. Players help Barbie interview suspects, use a metal detector to find clues, wield a slingshot to move troublesome objects, and solve ten different kinds of logic puzzles.
The logic puzzles are cleverly woven into the mystery story. For example, when Barbie stops at an antiques store, she discovers that someone recently traded a watch for new reins. To see the watch, which is buried under a pile of jewels, Barbie helps the store clerk match similar jewelry pieces into groups and moves them.
This Barbie software is very satisfying to play. Not only is the mystery complex and intriguing, but girls can do typical Barbie-type things, including dressing Barbie in outfits. The virtual horseback riding seems amazingly realistic because of the way the 3D scenery passes as you move.
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