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Gaming Pathology

Gaming Pathology

Piles Of Games, Copious Free Time, No Standards

Category: Girlie Games

Time To Ride Volvos

Posted on August 10, 2008 by Multimedia Mike

I replayed that Time To Ride: Saddles & Stables girlie game today in order to collect a few more screenshots for MobyGames. I found the nearby town and checked out the commerce center. When I took a good look around the virtual parking lot, I noticed something a little odd:


Time To Ride: Saddles & Stables — Time to ride Volvos!

That’s right: 2 out of 3 patrons drive Volvos, and the exact same model. That’s the correct shield on the grill and everything. I wonder if the developers had to license the model?

Anyway, I honestly want to like this game. It’s a good effort, but the play control is so awkward and the camera scheme leaves much to be desired. For example, when I happen to wander behind the storefront:


Time To Ride: Saddles & Stables — Stuck behind trash cans

I actually got stuck when the camera ducked down behind the trash cans and I could not figure out where I was. Hey, is that box measuring in liters? Well, this game was developed by a Scandinavian outfit. That might explain both the measurement units and the bias in automobiles.

So you know, there is more to this girlie game than just horseback riding– there’s also the brave quest to stand tall in the face of gossip. These kids stand around behind the store and chastise you for the way you dress and the people with whom you choose to consort:


Time To Ride: Saddles & Stables — Ward off gossip teens

Our city girl Amanda heroically faces down each verbal onslaught. We salute you, Amanda, with a vociferous, “you go, girl!” And if, for whatever reason, Amanda acquiesces to the derision, she can always buy new clothes in the game.

See Also:

  • My first examination of this title
  • Bratz: Rock Angelz, another girlie game dealing with challenges of gossip and fashion

At MobyGames:

  • Time To Ride: Saddles & Stables
Posted in Adventure Games Girlie Games Windows Games | Tagged horse volvo | 1 Comment

Time To Ride: Saddles & Stables

Posted on July 24, 2008 by Multimedia Mike

By way of an article in The Hater’s blog over at The Onion’s A.V. Club (Video Gamez For Ladiez), I learned of yet another article about trying to make video games appeal to the fairer sex. These pieces are a dime a dozen and every time I read one, I wonder how come I never read articles about what the movie industry is doing to make chick flicks more palatable to men. Anyway, just for this occasion, I’m finally creating a “Girlie Games” category for this blog and covering another horse riding game, just to further illustrate that there is a niche catering to perceived female gaming tastes. (Other girlie games revolve around fashion and gossip as well as wedding planning.)


Time To Ride: Saddles & Stables — Introductions

Tonight’s game is Time To Ride: Saddles & Stables. Long time readers may recall my last riding game was Let’s Ride: Corral Club. The first essential thing to recognize about this title is the title itself: It’s Time to Ride, whereas, the other title was Let’s Ride. That means that these are 2 different franchises. This means, or at least implies, that the horseback riding genre is successful enough to merit 2 competing franchises with multiple entries. Perhaps that’s as reasonable an indicator as any that there already is some viable market for girlie games.

Saddles & Stables is a pretty game; let’s get that out of the way since I always like to see that no matter what the game:


Time To Ride: Saddles & Stables — Taking the scenic route

The game centers around Amanda who moves from the city to the country to live with her father. Daddy promised her a horse but Amanda has to care for it and train it. The game starts with you taking the ponies out for test rides and deciding which to use. Afterwards, you get on with your teenage life, walking around town, talking to people, solving mysteries (yes, the manual hints at the game having a mystery that you may wish to solve). You could make the case that this game borrows elements from the popular Metal Gear Solid series:


Time To Ride: Saddles & Stables — Metal Gear-style exclamation

Thankfully, the characters are not interested in killing you when that exclamation symbol appears. That only means that the have something plot-advancing to say to you.

All the while this happens, you are expected to be grooming and training your horse. You have access to a variety of status meters to monitor the horse’s current behavior, running skill, and jumping skill, as well as to track the horse’s current needs for food, grooming, or clean living quarters.

Multimedia nerd note: I was ecstatic to see that this game actually uses a video codec called VP3 for its FMV. I wrote the (incomplete) book on VP3. This is really the first time I have seen VP3 files “in the wild”.

See also:

  • New Girlie Games blog category, games characterized as being specifically targeted for girls in that no male in his right mind (outside of a few, ahem, video game historians) would want to be caught in the same store selling them.
  • My second look at this game
  • Let’s Ride: Friends Forever, an entry from a competing equestrian gaming franchise

At MobyGames:

  • Time To Ride: Saddles & Stables
Posted in Action Games Adventure Games Girlie Games Windows Games | Tagged horse | 10 Comments

Let’s Ride: Corral Club

Posted on April 16, 2008 by Multimedia Mike

I picked up another girlie game from the same office store that usually supplies such titles. This one is Let’s Ride: Corral Club. It’s a horseback riding game. The game’s mere existence might not be so outlandish; that there is an entire series of Let’s Ride titles, more so.


Let’s Ride: Corral Club — Horse Configuration

First, you customize your girl’s appearance. Girls are the only option, eliminating any doubt of the series’ target demographic. Then it’s time to trick out your pony as seen in the screenshot above. Then choose one of 3 game modes: Practice, Competition, or Pasture.

Practice allows you to rehearse the one task you have to perform in this game: maneuvering your virtual equine organism around 3 barrels. The game guides you with arrows in this mode, but offers no such guidance when you leap hoof first into the actual competition:


Let’s Ride: Corral Club — Replaying Horse Action

Competitive times are are well under 20 seconds and get tighter as you reach higher levels. I don’t mind telling you I became extremely proficient at rounding those barrels. You wouldn’t believe how many different competitions there are in the game: Local, City, County, Sectional, Regional, State, National. I didn’t play long enough to see the Planetary or Galactic stages.

Can this possibly be all that there is to the game? The cliche that immediately springs to mind would be, “one-trick pony”. I proceeded to the Pasture stage. This presented a no-pressure romp around the same 3 barrels. However, it then offered a different barrel course called slalom:


Let’s Ride: Corral Club — Pasture

So the game mixes it up a little bit. I have no idea if this arrangement ever comes into play for the main competition, though. And I wonder what can possibly comprise all the other episodes of the game? Barrels in daring new arrangements? Hopefully, other series titles at least feature jumping. And you know that I’ll probably be the one to find out sooner or later.

Posted in Action Games Girlie Games Windows Games | 11 Comments

Bratz: Rock Angelz

Posted on November 26, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

Perhaps I need a “girlie games” category for this blog since I clearly have 2 games for such a category in as many days. If you’re unfamiliar with the Bratz franchise, good for you! To fill you in, they’re sort of a band of junior skanks marketed towards young girls. They seem to be universally reviled and condemned by parents yet wildly successful nonetheless. Naturally, they have a game or 3 in their massive merchandising repertoire.


Bratz: Rock Angelz — The main characters: Jade, Sasha, Chloe, and Yasmin

What kind of game is on offer in Bratz: Rock Angelz? I think you could qualify it as a team-based RPG with an assortment of innovative minigames, not unlike an entry into the blockbuster Final Fantasy franchise… or perhaps I’m just trying to make lemonade here. The story goes like this– one of the Bratz girlz gets a dream internship at a fashion magazine working for a demonic editor-in-chief (umm, The Devil Wears Prada, anyone? except that this character was not quite as restrained in her delivery as Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestley). The internship is predictably a nightmare as the character faces her two arch-nemeses — who have also been hired on in higher ranking positions — and has to perform menial chores unrelated to the core of her fashion interest. She eventually gets fired — the details are a bit fuzzy but I think it’s because the girl failed to properly screen out the editor’s junk mail — and the rest of the girlz get the bright idea to start their own fashion rag. So they rent an office that turns out to be a rat hole. So the next adventure is to go shopping in order to properly decorate the office space…

And that’s really all I could handle, seriously. I got to chapter 4 (out of 9 chapters). Some of the chapters are adventures where you guide the girlz around rendered sets and interact with characters and surroundings. There is a little exploration element here, but mostly the goals are pretty cut and dried. There is generally one over-arching quest for a particular chapter, but with a number of sub-quests within. These often involve helping other people. For example, the salesgirl at a clothing store is depressed because she can’t get up the nerve to talk to Eitan, the totally hot guy who works at the smoothie stand. So one of the girlz plays match-maker between the 2, and then the salesgirl finally has the spirit to help the Bratz girl in her quest. The game did not offer a “complain to manager” icon.

Wow, I can’t believe I explained that shy-girl scenario in such detail. It should be noted that, in contrast to typical adventure games, the conversations in this game are almost uniformly good-natured, even when the other character has nothing of note to mention. Typical games will be all like, “What do you want? I thought I told you I’m busy!” Where this game is totally like, “Hey, what’s up? Nothin’ much? That’s cool.”

Interspersed between and throughout the chapters are assorted minigames. Things like blending fruit smoothies to spec or picking out the editor’s clothes for a trip. Here is a minigame pertaining to doing a layout for the fashion magazine:


Bratz: Rock Angelz — Magazine layout minigame

I didn’t really try, and I don’t think it was possible to lose. Success at the minigames is rewarded with an upgraded wardrobe that can be changed out at anytime during the 3D adventure portions.


Bratz: Rock Angelz — Outfit selection

Think that’s a ridiculous detail? To be fair, it’s difficult to criticize Bratz for this outfit selection feature. More serious games have been doing this for years, notably in the Resident Evil series. Certain of these games have special unlockable outfits for the characters while other franchise games allow the player to customize the outfit at the very start (as seen in this screenshot).

Soleil Moon Frye serves as voice talent on this game. Turns out there is life after Punky Brewster. Checking her IMDb credits reveals that there is another Bratz franchise game — Forever Diamondz. Ugh, it just doesn’t end. I get the impression that everything having to do with Bratz must have some plural word in the title so that the pluralization can be spelled with ‘z’.

Posted in Adventure Games Girlie Games Windows Games | 13 Comments

My Fantasy Wedding

Posted on November 25, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, let this be an actual game which would merit its inclusion into MobyGames! I spotted My Fantasy Wedding in the clearance software section of an office supply shop. I purchased it even though I was unsure of whether it was technically a game vs., say, a shrink-wrapped wedding planning application. But it was still too tempting. When I got it home and peeled off the clearance sticker, I saw the ESRB rating badge — that means it has to be a game, right?

Who says there are no video games for girls?


My Fantasy Wedding — The Payoff

You know, in a recent MobyGames forum thread, another long-time contributor expressed shock that I had not resorted to cheap or dirty tricks in order to keep gaining MobyGames contribution points. That depends — could it be considered an unfair advantage that I’m willing to try games that no one else would go near? The title screen of this game greets you with squeaky excitement as your virtual narrator describes all the business that needs to be attended to before the wedding may take place. The first thing to do is to choose your bride avatar. Then choose from among 4 wedding locations, and then choose your bridesmaids. Then, you get to choose your groom. Not only that, you get to choose his groomsmen. If all of that is too much work, you can always click the curler-wearing “mother” icon who will make these choices on your behalf and allow you to get straight to the important stuff — shopping.


My Fantasy Wedding — Mall, floor 1

Much of the action takes place at the mall where you shop for dresses, tuxes, jewelry, bouquets, cakes, and everything else that a happy bride needs for her big day. Where does the “game” aspect enter into play? There are a number of minigames interspersed throughout the mall shops, each with 3 levels. The incentive to complete these minigames is that success unlocks more options in all of the various stores; more dress styles, more cake types, more flower species, etc.

One minigame is a matching game which requires neither an explanation nor a screenshot — this must be the easiest type of minigame to engineer. At least it’s smart enough to limit the number of misses that the player gets. There is a gift packing game that is almost like a sideways Tetris block game — pack as many rectangular wedding presents into the car as possible. There is also a Pac-Man clone that has a slight twist– it’s the flower girl game where the flower girl leads the bride through a maze to collect various treasures for the wedding. The antagonist in the maze is just the single groom — the groom must not be allowed to see the bride. The twist is that the player controls the flower girl while the bride follows a few steps behind. So the game requires some real-time planning.

This was one of my favorite games — the invitation game. Fling letters at the letter carrier marching to and fro on the sidewalk. I think this game could be considered a spiritual clone of Paperboy since it’s possible to break windows on the buildings in the background. Those invitations must be using some thick, expensive card stock.


My Fantasy Wedding — Invitation minigame

This is the most messed-up of the 6 minigames that My Fantasy Wedding has to offer — the bouquet game. It seems that your friends think you are the recipient of entirely too much generosity. You have too many presents and they want to steal your presents. You need to lay down a suppressing fire consisting of bridal bouquets to pacify your covetous girlfriends until they get their own fantasy weddings. It’s important to fire bouquets constantly in this game because the floral ordnance travels slowly and these greedy girls are slick.


My Fantasy Wedding — Bouquet minigame

There is much music in the game. A lot of it can be selected at the wedding music store in the mall. These are all the different songs that can be played during the wedding proper. These themes are recognizable, traditional, and public domain. However, different minigames and stores have assorted songs playing in the background. Many seem to be one-off renditions of more modern (i.e., copyrighted) songs. I just know that the song which plays during the dice game (where you and your girlfriends roll dice for bridal shower gifts) is an homage to the 1999 Santana/Rob Thomas song, “Smooth”.

See Also:

  • Barbie as Princess Bride, featuring Mattel’s Barbie in the middle of her own wedding-planning adventure

At MobyGames:

  • My Fantasy Wedding
  • Wedding planning game group — there are enough to merit an entire group
Posted in Action Games Girlie Games Windows Games | Tagged wedding Windows Games | 4 Comments

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