Bone: The Great Cow Race review

A little longer, a lot deeper and a hell of a lot more fun

GamesRadar+ Verdict

Pros

  • +

    Entertaining puzzle-based gameplay

  • +

    More to see and do than in last episode

  • +

    Adventure games are back! Hooray!

Cons

  • -

    Run time is still a little short

  • -

    Occasional glitches hamper experience

  • -

    Long

  • -

    frequent loading events

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Just when you thought point-and-click adventure games were dead and buried, last year's Bone: Out From Boneville sent a pale hand shooting up from the soil. Adapting the comic-book antics of three cousins who look like marshmallow femurs, Boneville was charming and fun, but its two-hour runtime (and $20 price tag) left something to be desired.

Bone: The Great Cow Race - the second chapter in the series - has no such problems. Available on the developer'swebsitefor $12.99, it offers Bone fans a deeper, longer adventure, packing in more minigames, more personality and much higher production values. The characters are more expressive, there's more to see and do and you can even switch between characters on the fly.

Like the first game, Cow Race is a mouse-driven, "find the things to use on other things and solve the puzzles" adventure. Exploration through the 3D environment is broken up by quick minigames, puzzles and conversations, and overall the action is slow, thoughtful and pressure-free. (Seriously, you can even click a question-mark icon for progressively more detailed hints if you get stuck.)

For those unfamiliar with the comics (or the first chapter of the game, which we reviewedhere), Bone is the story of three cousins - sweet-natured protagonist Fone Bone, miserly schemer Phoney Bone and empty-headed hobo Smiley Bone - who get run out of their hometown on a rail. They end up in The Valley, a medieval-fantasy land populated by cigar-smoking dragons, an insanely tough old woman named Gran'ma Ben and vicious, man-sized "rat creatures" who argue endlessly about the merits of quiche.

More info

GenreAdventure
DescriptionA little longer, a lot deeper and a hell of a lot more fun than the first Bone episode.
Platform"PC"
US censor rating"Rating Pending"
UK censor rating""
Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK)
Less
Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.