Lucinda Green's Equestrian Challenge
Score: 59% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Red Mile Entertainment Developer: IR Gurus Interactive Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 - 4 Genre: Simulation/ Sports/ Action
Graphics & Sound: There aren’t many games out there that simulate competitive equestrian sports. There’s horse racing, but it rarely seems to put you on the back of the horse and in the experience. Lucinda Green’s Equestrian Challenge attempts to give you the experience of competing in 3 different equestrian sports: dressage, show-jumping, and cross-country. I’ll admit, the true experience of these sports probably involves a lot of frustration, tears, and numbing repetition. If that’s what EC was supposed to be, then it’s spot-on. Sound in Equestrian Challenge mixes bland music with decent sound effects and ambient noise. I had to turn the uninspired music off to be able to get through the game. I wondered why there was no change of music going from training to competitive events. Some variety would have helped a touch. Once the music was turned off, the noise of the horse running and breathing plus the cheer of the crowd was good enough to immerse you in the experience. The look of the game isn’t jaw-dropping, but provides enough detail and realism most of the time. I was disappointed by the lack of horse models available. EC has several slots available for horses, but only one real body type. Perhaps there’s no real difference in appearance between a Thoroughbred and a Thoroughbred Warmblood (I was unable to find much information on the subject), but they could have provided at least one different head or body type. You can choose coloring and markings, but many of the color combinations look unnatural and unattractive. There’s also a strange hindquarter marking option that seems unfinished. You can choose to put a geometric checkerboard pattern on the back of your horse. Why, I don’t know. Since the horse is what this game revolves around, I expected a bit more from the horse models. They run across the ground like they are floating. There’s no real weight to them at all. There’s also no variety in their animation – they stop in only one way, they toss their heads in only one way. As far as backgrounds go, you can see where effort was put in to create unique levels. It all seems a bit too pixilated and rough at times, but it’s enough to provide the correct setting for the sports.
Gameplay: Lucinda Green's Equestrian Challenge focuses on 3 events: jumping, cross-country, and dressage. If there’s one event that you love more than the others in this list, it’s too bad. You’ll be required to play them all, and play them well in order to progress any further. That being said, they each provide a different feel and style of gameplay. At least there is variety, but it’s not necessarily enjoyable. Briefly you may get a feeling of excitement, and really feel as if you’re participating in these sports. When you manage to clear a set of difficult jumps and the horse just sails along, it feels great. When you’re making those sharp turns and controlling your speed, it reminds me of watching professional show-jumping on TV. But the illusion is easily broken, and most of the time I am left confused as to why the horse could make one jump one way, and not another way. This applies to the cross-country and jumping events, but dressage is a totally different matter. It’s a rhythm game, and not a particularly interesting one. I’ll admit, if younger players are playing this game, the dressage section can be a welcome break, and a confidence booster. But once you’ve memorized the button sequences, it becomes dull very quickly. It’s too bad, since this could have been a great section of the game if it had a more interesting control scheme, as dressage is a very graceful and admirable sport in reality. A big problem with EC is the lack of things available to motivate you to keep playing the game. Sure, you can eventually create 6 different horses, but why would you go through the monotony of building a stable of nearly identical looking horses and earning development points to raise their stats? You can’t switch horses in the middle of a competition, so there’s no reason to build a good “jumping horse” or a good “cross-country horse.” This means it makes no sense to make another horse and the best thing to do is keep building your original horse up to be good at everything. You can also earn new outfits, but this is a joke. Some “new” outfits have different colored buttons, or some tiny marking to distinguish it from the other outfits. You’ll also end up spending a great deal of time caring for your horse by brushing, feeding, and watering it. This is one of the dullest aspects of the game. Let’s say you feed your horse by selecting the feeding option. Then you have to sit and wait while your horse runs into the background and eats off of a pile of hay that has always been there, and will never get smaller. Watering and other care activities are more of the same. Once again, I can’t imagine wanting to do this for 6 different horses. One more thing I find frustrating is the linear progression through the competitive events. If I want to attempt the next level of training, I can’t do it until I complete all four competitions with 3 events each. That’s a lot of repetition just to start doing something new. There is a “ride with a friend” option for up to 4 players. Sometimes the option of multiplayer can make a game worthwhile, but don’t expect exciting split-screen competition. You need to pass the controller around for this multiplayer option, and there’s no option to go online.
Difficulty: The difficulty of the dressage and jumping events in Lucinda Green's Equestrian Challenge are not too terrible that they can’t be overcome with a bit of practice. It’s the cross-country event that can bring a grown person to tears. Once you’re let out into the bigger competition tracks, you have more freedom to move around the track, and more opportunities to foul up or completely miss the required jumps. Things don’t even become easier when you’re familiar with the track. Your horse may seem completely squared up for a jump, and will surprise you by balking at it. Or you may discover that you can make a jump only from the most ridiculous angle imaginable. There are 3 different difficulty levels, and you may find that in order to enjoy the game, you will have to back off a level or two. On Hard, things are just frustrating. There’s the difficulty of finding the correct angle to jump, which means memorizing nonsensical angles of approach. This is the worst during cross-country. There is no reward for choosing a higher difficulty anyway - you simply get more development points for your horse. All the development points in the world won’t build a horse that makes these jumps anyway. This is made more frustrating by the fact that you’re shown a glowing orange “jump path” to follow on every jump. Sometimes if you try to follow these paths, you’ll never make it through the course. It’s important to note that most of these problems disappear when you play on the Easy setting. Your horse jumps automatically, and you’re forgiven for many mistakes. However, it’s so easy that it becomes boring after a while. Once you step up to one of the other two levels of difficulty, the frustrations outweigh the enjoyment you should get from the challenge.
Game Mechanics: Even on the hardest difficulty, Lucinda Green's Equestrian Challenge’s controls are simple. You speed up, slow down, jump, and gallop. On Easy, the horse jumps without player input. On the Medium level of difficulty, every time you near a jump, time will slow down (think The Matrix) and allow the player more time to line up for the jump. Even with this feature, it can be difficult to manage sets of jumps close to one another. I may be expecting a bit too much, but the controls could have been tweaked to make the experience a bit more enjoyable and realistic. In EC, controls are responsive, but your horse always has a wide turning radius, no matter what speed it is going. In reality, horses aren’t rigid like cars, you can turn very tightly if you’re going slowly. If you could do this, it would help ease the frustration of going back to attempt those frustrating and frequent jumps. At times, Equestrian Challenge makes you feel like you’re a part of equestrian sporting. Most of the time, however, it is painfully monotonous and frustrating. Luckily, the price is not too bad. However, if you’re getting this game for a person interested in equestrian sports, the money might be better spent on a riding lesson. It would be just as challenging, and probably more rewarding.
-Fights with Fire, GameVortex Communications AKA Christin Deville
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