Gamernode: Reviews - My Horse and Me

My Horse and Me

• My Horse and Me
• Wii
• W!Games
• Atari
• February 05th, 2008

Really, you should know from the title and cover alone that My Horse and Me is a game designed entirely for young girls. An often ignored market in the gaming industry, I'm glad to see that they have some games of their own outside of Barbie. (But still, horses? That's the second most used cliche!)

Despite that, I'm not a 10 year-old girl, and I'm not going to review this as if I were one. I'm going to review it as the 23 year-old man I am. Unfortunately, I also had to play this as a 23 year-old man.

Backed by the International Equestrian Federation, this is the first game to get the license and recognition from the largest sports horse organization in the world. (I have no idea what that is, it was just featured prominently on the back of both versions so I thought it beared mentioning.)

Basically, My Horse and Me lets you create a rider, then live out any equestrian dreams you might have secretly been hiding in fear that your friends will make fun of you. Have you ever wanted to guide a white horse around a track, jumping over obstacles to try and be the best in the show? If you have, then this is the game for you. If you haven't... You should already know that by now.

To give it some credit, the developers did a great job of using the Wii controls in the Wii version of My Horse and Me. Unlike the abominable DS version, the Wii actually remains fun for a short while. Using the nunchuck and remote, you guide your horse as if you're actually holding the reigns. Pull up to make it stop, turn it by raising one and pulling down/back on the other, shake them up and down to increase speed, etc. Adding in a first person mode was genius, and it actually does give a very nice illusion of riding the horse you created.

That's about all that there is to the game, though. You're able to perform tasks and groom your horse throughout the day and between events, but it's never any fun. Much like real life, cleaning stables and wiping your horse clean after a long day of running aren't exactly the things dreams are made of.

Sure, you can enter international competitions and place, thereby earning new clothes and all that fun stuff, but when the game plays entirely the same, it just gets boring fairly soon.

If you have a daughter (or son?) that loves horses and has always wanted one of their own, then they might have some fun with this game. Not only do the controls allow them to mimic real horse riding, but the price of a Wii and a game is much, much cheaper than the price of a pony, riding lessons, stabling it, and all the gear needed to ride a real horse.

Is it the same thing? Not really. It's the closest gaming has come yet, though. So for those young girls out there who want to raise and compete with a horse of their own, this is for you. For everyone else (and likely everyone reading this review), stay far, far away, and only play this for more than five minutes if you have a young female relative to entertain, or have no other choice.

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