Barnyard

Barnyard is the latest movie tie in to reach Nintendo's new Wii console, surprisingly most of these games have been of quite good quality and this game follows the trend quite nicely.

In the game you take the role of a new cow who is becoming a resident in the farm, once you have settled in you will have to make friends, which in turn will lead to you taking on missions and eventually becoming the animal everyone wants to be due to your overall greatness. To keep you occupied during the missions, THQ have included a lots of mini-games and activities, as well as a design your home game, which means you will be buying furniture, games, and other accessories to build up your Barnyard to the way you want it to be, as well as all of this you will find yourself competing in events such as driving and bike riding, so there is plenty to keep you occupied.

The in game action lets you roam the farm collecting items, talking to other animals, or participating in missions and as the game progresses you will open up different area's to explore, and there certainly is a huge area to explore, luckily though you do have a map to help you get around, the map also shows hotspots such as missions you can take part in ,stores, events and save points.

With such a huge area to cover it is quite lucky that you are able to ride along on a bike, and after wandering around for a while finding your feet, it won't be long until you come across one, and this certainly makes getting around a whole lot easier.

As with most Nintendo Wii games, the controls are very responsive and switch easily from controlling your cow in the main game to steering the car or teeing off in the mini games.

In fact, while we are on the subject of mini games, there are quite a few here that are worth a mention, Barnyard actually does a solid job on most of this bonus content and as the game progresses, players will have the chance to take part in events range such as the chicken flying game, racing challenge, gopher golf, billiards, darts, and whack-a-mole, there are at least 20 events to check out which includes both mini-games and in-game events, so as you can see there is plenty to keep you occupied should you stray from the main mission.

Unfortunately some of the mini games are the things that highlight the bad points of Barnyard, for example in the darts game, the Wii remote can become sensitive at times, meaning that virtually any movement will be interpreted as throw and in some of the other games the Wii remote just feels completely irresponsive altogether.

The in game graphics have a bit of charm about them and are perfectly accompanied by the sound which has an added bonus of some dialogue recorded by the cast just for the game, unfortunately though this does feel quite lacking in some areas.

Overall Barnyard does provide a entertaining game with plenty to keep you occupied, it is just unfortunate that it doesn't really shine above any other games in a similar genre, this is probably due to the flaws in the mini games, however I am sure that kids will love this game, it is tied in well to the movie and offers easy of use as a incentive for kids to keep playing.