THQ, known for their licensed video games on children’s films, brings forth another movie-enthused title.  This time it is Nickelodeon’s Barnyard and THQ hopes to mix up the genre a little.  Many gamers will expect Barnyard to be the run-of-the-mill adaptation where you play the film’s storyline.  In Barnyard, that is not the case; THQ provides players an open-ended world to play through and decide on their own mission layout. 

The developer in charge of creating Barynard is Blue Tongue.  Blue Tongue is responsible for THQ’s The Polar Express that released in 2004 on the PC, PS2, and GameCube.  Outside of The Polar Express, Blue Tongue has worked on the Starship Troopers franchise on the PC, and Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis on the Xbox and PS2.  With Barnyard being their biggest title to date, let’s look how everything turned out.

Fans of the movie will get a kick out of seeing their favorite characters on the farm full of crazy animals.  If you haven’t seen the movie, the synopsis of the plot is simple – animals walk and talk just like humans in the world of Barnyard.  They even walk upright and have different characteristics to set them apart from one another.  Otis is the happy-go-lucky cow that is the popular stud on the farm.  Everyone looks towards him for his practical jokes and funny stunts, but his father doesn’t approve.  The “coyote season” arrives and Otis’ father, Ben, steps down as the security guard of the farm leaving Otis in charge.  Otis must fill his father’s shoes in protecting the farm and running it as he sees fit, all without ever being noticed by the humans.  Barnyard is nothing out of the ordinary if you follow children’s movies closely – with a simple concept, all children should understand the game with ease.

The favorite characters from the film show up in the video game in a variety of ways.  Otis is the main character from the film, while Ben and even Peck, a wacky chicken, make their appearances.  You don’t necessarily play as Otis – you are thrown into Barnyard as a new kid on the block.  Being the new kid on the block, you’ll want to make your first impression a lasting one, so time to hit it off with the cool kids.  You’ll participate in many of the activities that are played out as mini-games.  You’ll be playing gopher golf, launching chickens with slingshots, shooting coyotes and raccoons with your udders, and much more.  Half of the fun is watching things play out as Barnyard takes animal parity to the extreme.  I have never seen a male cow with udders (am I missing something here Nickelodeon?).  The missions aren’t that hard, but each of them varies from one another to set them apart.  If you aren’t looking to complete missions, you can set out to accept tasks from the locales.  Usually these tasks consist of finding hidden / lost items for the NPCs.

The storyline is loose and isn’t heavy on storytelling.  It still revolves around the raccoons and coyotes trying to invade the farm, so it isn’t exactly groundbreaking from the movie counterpart.  There are some sidetracking events that will fill up your time.  There are BMX tricks you can perform just for the sake of it on your bicycle.  There are parlor games at the barn to play such as pool, darts and whack-a-rac.

Graphically speaking, THQ and Blue Tongue put out decent visuals.  The 3D sandbox world is great; not too many licensed video games based on children’s movies visit this route, so it is refreshing.  The cel-shaded graphics of the characters are accurate depictions of their film equals.  The animations of the characters are detailed enough to notice – they’ll smile, blink, and kick up dirt when they walk.  The familiar locations from the film should be welcoming to the fanatics that loved the movie.  Overall, the graphics are never held up; no skipping framerate problems or a lack of visual effects, Barnyard holds up well against others in its genre. 

The audio isn’t up to par when compared to the graphics.  The sound effects are all in place; when you shake a tree, when you ride your bike, and other actions are accompanied by sound effects.  What’s actually missing is depth in the recorded dialogue portion of the audio.  NPCs will only read the first line of the dialogue and then leave the player hanging to read the rest.  The soul of the characters isn’t exactly displayed and it leaves them lifeless.  If Blue Tongue would have concentrated on delivering solid voice-overs, it would have come across better in the audio department.

Barnyard is impressive when compared to other children’s games as of late.  It has the open-ended experience that gamers are looking for and even allows the players to create their own character.  If Blue Tongue would have focused a little more on the story and shelled out more dialogue, this would have been the surprise hit of the fall for me.
 

Gameplay: 7.2
The open-ended gameplay is refreshing to the point I actually enjoyed myself thoroughly.  A decent surprise at that, Barnyard does have its limitations.  The storyline is as weak as the movie and the characters may feel a little contrived.  There’s easily ten hours of gameplay in Barnyard.

Graphics: 7.4
Replicates the movie adequately.  While it doesn’t compare to any of the top tier GameCube games (Resident Evil), it does stand up to other children’s games.

Sound: 6.1
Surprisingly, Blue Tongue didn’t dish out a plethora of recorded dialogue like I expected.  With that omission, it felt as if there was a void that kept the interaction minimal with the living world of Barynard.

Difficulty: Easy

Definitely aimed towards beginners; I never had trouble once playing through the mini-games. 

Concept: 7.3

Licensed video games aren’t a shocking new trend.  It’s nice to see that THQ and Blue Tongue put out a licensed title that doesn’t follow the story, but allows the players to create their own character within that world.

Overall: 7.1

This is ultimately aimed at the younger audience.  If you find yourself over the age of 16 and you buy this, I hope you know what you are about to get yourself into.  This won’t have the blood and violence from those “teen” rated video games.  Barnyard is basically what I think every parent should look for when buying their children video games.  It is open-ended, has humor, and looks visually pleasing.  Before you buy it though, make sure you watch the movie.