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.

Unlike its PS2 counterpart, which boasts sharp visuals and a good control scheme, the GameCube version suffers from graphic and control issues. The graphics, although retaining the film's brightly colored and stylized look, appear muddy and illustrate the limitations of current gen systems. (We've seen graphics similar to this on the PSP, for crying out loud.) And the controls aren't intuitive; you'll find yourself slapping the wrong buttons at times; they're especially awkward when using the sprint button (mapped onto the X button as opposed to the L1 button on the PS2, making it impossible to jump or manipulate the camera while sprinting). Mapping it to the Z button would have been better, thus freeing up your thumb and making multitasking plausible.

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.