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My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party Parade
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Graphics & Sound:
My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party Parade promises to wear out a certain key on my keyboard, but beyond that, is a game for the recently "renovated" My Little Pony franchise. They are a line of small colorful pony toys that had an exceptionally long run in the 1980's through the early 1990s, vanishing for a hiatus of a few years and then coming back on and off in new designs. Though the 80s saw many cartoon and toy game adaptations, video games weren't part of the franchise until the recent past.
You're in for a lot of pink and pastels here, but you probably knew that by looking at the box. This game is as colorful as you would expect, though some of the animated sequences are a bit washed out looking. The pony models are done in 3D pre-rendered computer graphics. It's simple, but fairly accurate to the toys. Considering the simplicity of the models, the range of animation produced for this game is a little disappointing. There are a few animations recycled for all the ponies, so it's not too much to look forward to if you're a little kid hoping to see your toys come to life. Still, it looks good for what it is.
I really hurt for the option to turn off that one annoying song they play during all the story sequences. But ok, annoying music in a kid's game is not unexpected. Very happy, very monotonous stuff is what you'll get here. The ponies frequently talk during the game, and that's when you'll realize this game is geared toward a very young crowd. Everything is spoken for you: letters, names of menu options, even "backspace" is said for you when you mouse over it. The voices are varied, at least among a higher octave level, and seem to stay true to the feel of the old 80's cartoons.
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Gameplay:
My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party Parade is a prime candidate for why a maximum age warning might be more appropriate than a minimum in some cases. This game is for young kids - really young kids. It's not exactly trying to teach the alphabet, but this is a game geared toward children who still like clicking on things to hear a sound or get a pretty picture. There are no inside jokes for the adults, and not much of interest to anyone who isn't still playing house and making mud-pies.
The story here is that the ponies are putting a parade together. Pinkie Pie (I know the names were always silly, but come on) has forgotten that she has to make a special gift for a secret birthday guest. So she goes around town asking other ponies to help her with a tiara for the mystery guest. In return, she helps them with their parade preparations, and a happy, happy time is had by all.
Activities in this game include coloring, playing dress up with a pony, and matching like objects. That's pretty straightforward, but they did make it interesting in some areas. There are musical brushes that play sound effects while you paint with them, as well as rainbow brushes and flower stamp brushes to name a few. There are also plenty of options for printing pictures so that kids can color the old-fashioned way. Unfortunately, printing is the only way to save artwork, so you'd better have some ink on hand if you've got an artistic child in the house. Some slightly more goal-oriented games also make an appearance here. There's bowling, a scooter race, and croquet. There are no penalties or losing really, just gentle persuasion to try again. Reaching certain goals will get you extra artwork, but that's about all.
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Difficulty:
It's hard to say My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Parade is difficult, but then it's hard to say it's even a game at times. This is more of a grouping of fun activities for kids. The only game portions really are the scooter race, bowling, dancing, and croquet. These require you to actively control the game. Either way they are very forgiving. To give you an example of how easy these "game" portions can be, there is one game that is kind of a puzzle game. You need to match 3 like flowers that are touching each other. That's all you're asked to do over and over, with no bonuses or penalties. The pony will congratulate you for filling a basket full of flowers, but then you'll just have to do the same thing again.
It's not hard to figure out anything due to the copious instructions you're given before each activity. This is a pretty nice feature for a young age group, but the amount of instructions might be a lot to absorb before diving in. Menu icons could also be a bit easier to see - they are just tiny pictures that don't look like anything until you look closer. Once again, nothing is too hard to figure out, so it's really not a drawback. |
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Game Mechanics:
My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Parade is a basic point-and-click type of game. Everything works well, if only for the fact that it's set up to let young children "win." The scooter race, for example, might be tough for children to figure out at first. Once they get the basic coordination of pointing the mouse to steer, it's hard to lose. Likewise with bowling, bumpers are set up and pretty much any time the ball hits the bumper, it is diverted straight for the center of the pins and results in a strike.
The only thing that can be considered mildly aggravating is the dance activity. You're supposed to match the dance cue that is coming up with a dance cue in a group of mixed dance cues. It seems like it's a rhythm game at first, but it will swap the cue you were waiting on from under your mouse just as you think you're supposed to hit it. Really, what you're supposed to do is leisurely look around for the matching cue when it comes up. Relatively speaking, this isn't very bad, it just jumps out as a possible point of confusion.
If you've got a young kid who is a My Little Pony fan, and they're also very young, this might not be a bad buy. It doesn't ask you to do anything particularly taxing, so it will satisfy kids that just want to click around on the PC and see things happen. It does have a variety of activities, but the main replay value for them is to obtain pieces of a poster. Beyond that, there's not much going on here. If you're an adult collector of the toys, the music and voices will probably make you turn it off, no matter how curious you are.
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-Fights with Fire, GameVortex Communications AKA Christin Deville |
Minimum System Requirements:
Windows XP/Vista, Pentium III 1.0 GHz, 8X CD-ROM, 256 MB Ram, 700 MB Hard Drive space, DirectX 9.0 compatible video card with 64 MB of Video RAM, DirectX 9.0 Compatible sound card, DirectX 9.0 or higher, keyboard and mouse, optional: printer to print posters and artwork |
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Test System:
Windows XP, 3.20 GigaHertz Intel Pentium 4, 4 GB Ram, RADEON X850, Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS |
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