Barnyard review

That's when Barnyard begins to wear out its welcome. Seeming to be nothing more than a collection of minigames and quests, it grows repetitive and tiresome. But as you progress, it begins to reveal its depths, taking on the movie's plot. This is to be expected in a film-based game, but by structuring it in a progressive, seemingly episodic manner, it explores unexpected depth when moving from minigames to plot oriented missions.

The Wii version'sgraphics, although retaining the film's brightly colored and stylized look, appear muddy andlook, likemost current Wii titles, like PS2 or GameCube graphics rather than those of a next-gen machine. The controls aren't quite as clunky as in other versions though, thanks to your ability to flick the Wii remote to jump, kick barrels and so on. They'd need some tightening before we wanted to play a reflex-driven title like Metroid Prime, but these will do for this purpose.

The sound department suffers similarly from lack of planning - or cut corners. We're treated to the same three or four obnoxious themes because music is in short supply. And the dialogue doesn't fare any better. The game gives us brief bits of spoken dialogue - usually short sentences - followed by long stretches of silence while we continue to read dialogue-heavy text.