 Review By: Jared Black |
Developer: | ImaginEngine |
| Publisher: | ValuSoft | |
| Genre: | Action | |
| ESRB: | Everyone | |
| # Of Players: | 1 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | Minimum System Requirements: Pentium III 1.0 GHz 256 MB RAM 700 MB Hard Drive Space DirectX 9.0 |
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| Buy Now: |   |
I think young girls deserve quality gaming experiences just as much as anyone else does, ideally ones that teach them as well as entertain them, and not just the usual bargain bin fare that's actually designed to give mommy and daddy a few moments of peace. So as much as it pains me as a reviewer, occasionally I like to give some of my time to titles aimed at young girls and boys. Won't anyone think of the children? Well, I do. Make no mistake about it, reviewing My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party Parade was about as close to torture as playing a video game has ever been for me personally, but for the purposes of this review what really matters is how well I think it meets the needs of its intended audience.
Unfortunately, I don't think this is quite the quality gaming experience young girls badly need. The story is simple: waking up the morning of the Birthday Party Parade, Pinkie Pie realizes that she's forgotten to decorate the tiara that the super secret special birthday guest is supposed to wear! Scrambling to carry out her duties, she enlists the help of her fellow fun-loving foals via a series of mini-games to save the day.
Stored in a scrapbook, the game offers ten different mini-games, the first seven of which must be completed in sequence. They include:
- Pony Pictures: create pictures with stickers, paint with 6 different patterns
- Dressing Up: design fashion outfit using pre-made pieces
- Decorate Teacup Palace: Help Star Song decorate Teapot Palace by picking from several different accessories
- Dancing Day: Click on matching pictures to make Star Song dance
- Cake Baker: Select cake pieces to match the cake in the picture
- Collecting Flowers: Collect three matching flowers in a row to fill up a basket, similar to Bejeweled
- Magic Star Show: Toss star charms to clear clouds for the Ponyville Party Parade
- Cutie Croquet: Aim and click to put the ball through the wickets
- Pony Bowling: Click to stop the pony from moving, then aim and bowl.
- Scooter Race: Use mouse to steer scooter, while collecting power-ups to go faster
As you can probably tell from the descriptions, most of these aren't really games at all. For example, Pony Pictures is really just a simplistic drawing application, akin to the Flash ones you'll find for free on websites for major children's outlets. Meanwhile, to “beat” games like Dressing Up or Decorate Teacup Palace, the player merely has to select several different options to advance. No amount of coordination is necessary, and no specific requirements are laid out in advance. So in reality, most of these games really only test how well a kid can click on icons, which means that any computer-literate child will breeze through them in minutes. Only a few of the 10 mini-games here are actual games (the last three in particular are the most game-like), and those should actually be decent diversions for a small child, even if they are overly simplistic.
Each mini-game is prefaced by a conversation between Pinkie Pie and another Pony, and these occur on basic static backgrounds with the ponies occasionally kicking or wagging while talking. They talk verrrrrrrry sloooooowly, so slowly in fact that I suspect most children will become distracted from the game while waiting for these several-minute mindless conversations to finish. The worst part though is that the ponies bizarrely pause to perform animations in the middle of their speeches, so it's not rare to see a pony pause, kick up its hind legs, and then resume talking. The voices themselves are ultra-cute, grating and sugary-sweet, but fine for the audience that should be playing this.
As far as extras are concerned, players can unlock poster pieces by performing well, eventually unlocking printable posters of their favorite ponies. This is a nice touch that offers incentive to keep playing after “beating” the game. While feats of technical wonder aren't expected in a children's title, it's worth noting though that this game is locked at 800x600 with no windowed mode, and button combinations like ALT-TAB are disabled. So if your young girl is gaming on a widescreen monitor things are going to look a little stretched with some artifacting, but it still looks good enough for less discerning eyes, and disabling the Windows key combinations that could cause her to accidentally leave the game screen and become confused is smart.
Bottom Line:
My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party Parade will no doubt entertain fans of the franchise for an hour or two, but any girl old enough to actually know what My Little Pony is will quickly grow tired of the over-simplified mini-games and lack of real challenge here. While activity center type games like this certainly have their place in the industry, this one needs more variety and challenge to truly be worth a purchase in my opinion. Still, among games aimed at young girl gamers, you could do much, much worse than this largely inoffensive offering.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 3.5 |
Posted: 2008-04-25 12:53:19 PST