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IGN Review of Emma at the Farm
Reviewing games like Emma in the Mountains and Emma at the Farm is a difficult proposition, mainly because they aren't actually games at all. The Emma titles have more in common with a pop-up book you'd find on the shelves of your local bookstore than a traditional videogame. Young children will have a blast reading along and interacting with their DS in a variety of novel ways, enamored in the same manner they are when being read a good bedtime story. The problem is that we aren't reviewing the Emma children's novels, we're reviewing the Emma games, and the Emma games just don't offer enough content to warrant the price of admission.
Just like Emma's literary predecessors like Clifford the Big Red Dog and Amelia Bedelia, this pair of Emma titles offers two unique tales following the exploits of the young redhead as she stumbles upon all sorts of adventures along with her trusty talking dog Pickles. Emma in the Mountains, for instance, finds our heroine visiting her grandfather in the mountains as he prepares for the annual toboggan race. Emma discovers that the groundhogs around the cabin are missing, even though their hibernating days have long since passed. With Pickles and her friend Andy by her side, Emma must search the mountain for clues as to the missing groundhog's whereabouts before the toboggan race can get underway.
Emma at the Farm, on the other hand, tasks Pickles and Emma with finding a group of missing baby chicks while helping her Uncle Jules perform the daily chores around the farmyard. Over the course of the adventure, Emma meets a whole variety of barnyard animals including ducks, cows, pigs, chickens and even a donkey. Sure, the narratives are a bit juvenile for the average gamer, but they provide more than enough excitement for younger kids who love children's stories.
The pop-up book metaphor works for more than just the stories, however, extending all the way to how the game ultimately plays out. Players will read through a series of dialogue and narration scenes before interacting with the game world in the form of a mini-game. These sections are remarkably analogous to a pop-up book's pull-tabs. Flip a page, read the text, pull the tab, repeat.
The games guide players in an extremely linear fashion that feels very restrictive, but in this context meshes well with the interactive children's book vibe that both titles seem to strive for. Gamers looking for real excitement need not apply, but kids who just want to get a little bit more involved with the stories they're reading will really get a kick out of the way Emma in the Mountains and Emma at the Farm are laid out.
The mini-games themselves are pretty shallow, so much so that I even hesitate to characterize some of them as mini-games at all. For instance, there's one scene in which Emma is trying to wake up a sleeping old man by blowing into the DS' built-in microphone. Just one strong blow and you're done. It's hardly worthy of being described as an actual mini-game, but the fact that you're interacting with the story does manage to draw younger players into the world. Over the course of Emma's adventures, players will get into a snowball fight, navigate a dark groundhog burrow, collect chicken eggs and water a vegetable garden, among other activities. These little challenges really help to move the story along and make players feel a part of the action, even if only a handful of these activities manage to remain compelling outside of their narrative context.
One characteristic in which the Emma titles fail to match the pop-up book comparison is in the visuals. Simply put, both Emma in the Mountains and Emma at the Farm are ugly games. The character models are comprised of low-resolution renders that vary wildly in quality, jumping from dramatically compressed 2D sprites to strange cartoon drawings from one minute to the next. Half of the fun of reading children's books is viewing the amazing artwork, and the Emma titles unfortunately fail to deliver in this very important department.
The good news is that you won't have to be disappointed by Emma's visuals for long, as you'll have played through all of the content for both titles in less than an hour. Again, the included stories are very reminiscent of classic children's books in many ways, and that definitely includes their short overall length. What's more, there's not much reason to come back and play again, unless players are interested in checking out the harder difficulty modes that unlock after the first completion.
Emma at the Farm in particular does offer one unique feature worth mentioning. One of the unlockable extras is a series of recipes for players to try out with their parents. The recipes themselves are nothing fancy – nowhere near as interactive or unique as the recently released Personal Trainer: Cooking from Nintendo – but they do provide a nice practical bonus for the whole family to enjoy.
©2008-12-17, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Just like Emma's literary predecessors like Clifford the Big Red Dog and Amelia Bedelia, this pair of Emma titles offers two unique tales following the exploits of the young redhead as she stumbles upon all sorts of adventures along with her trusty talking dog Pickles. Emma in the Mountains, for instance, finds our heroine visiting her grandfather in the mountains as he prepares for the annual toboggan race. Emma discovers that the groundhogs around the cabin are missing, even though their hibernating days have long since passed. With Pickles and her friend Andy by her side, Emma must search the mountain for clues as to the missing groundhog's whereabouts before the toboggan race can get underway.
Emma at the Farm, on the other hand, tasks Pickles and Emma with finding a group of missing baby chicks while helping her Uncle Jules perform the daily chores around the farmyard. Over the course of the adventure, Emma meets a whole variety of barnyard animals including ducks, cows, pigs, chickens and even a donkey. Sure, the narratives are a bit juvenile for the average gamer, but they provide more than enough excitement for younger kids who love children's stories.
The pop-up book metaphor works for more than just the stories, however, extending all the way to how the game ultimately plays out. Players will read through a series of dialogue and narration scenes before interacting with the game world in the form of a mini-game. These sections are remarkably analogous to a pop-up book's pull-tabs. Flip a page, read the text, pull the tab, repeat.
The games guide players in an extremely linear fashion that feels very restrictive, but in this context meshes well with the interactive children's book vibe that both titles seem to strive for. Gamers looking for real excitement need not apply, but kids who just want to get a little bit more involved with the stories they're reading will really get a kick out of the way Emma in the Mountains and Emma at the Farm are laid out.
The mini-games themselves are pretty shallow, so much so that I even hesitate to characterize some of them as mini-games at all. For instance, there's one scene in which Emma is trying to wake up a sleeping old man by blowing into the DS' built-in microphone. Just one strong blow and you're done. It's hardly worthy of being described as an actual mini-game, but the fact that you're interacting with the story does manage to draw younger players into the world. Over the course of Emma's adventures, players will get into a snowball fight, navigate a dark groundhog burrow, collect chicken eggs and water a vegetable garden, among other activities. These little challenges really help to move the story along and make players feel a part of the action, even if only a handful of these activities manage to remain compelling outside of their narrative context.
One characteristic in which the Emma titles fail to match the pop-up book comparison is in the visuals. Simply put, both Emma in the Mountains and Emma at the Farm are ugly games. The character models are comprised of low-resolution renders that vary wildly in quality, jumping from dramatically compressed 2D sprites to strange cartoon drawings from one minute to the next. Half of the fun of reading children's books is viewing the amazing artwork, and the Emma titles unfortunately fail to deliver in this very important department.
The good news is that you won't have to be disappointed by Emma's visuals for long, as you'll have played through all of the content for both titles in less than an hour. Again, the included stories are very reminiscent of classic children's books in many ways, and that definitely includes their short overall length. What's more, there's not much reason to come back and play again, unless players are interested in checking out the harder difficulty modes that unlock after the first completion.
Emma at the Farm in particular does offer one unique feature worth mentioning. One of the unlockable extras is a series of recipes for players to try out with their parents. The recipes themselves are nothing fancy – nowhere near as interactive or unique as the recently released Personal Trainer: Cooking from Nintendo – but they do provide a nice practical bonus for the whole family to enjoy.
©2008-12-17, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved