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• Reviewed on: PS2, Gamecube
• Also available for: GameBoy Advance; Nintendo DS (Monster House); PC (Barnyard, Bratz: Forever Diamondz)
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As the festive season approaches and you grapple with what games to buy for little Johnny or Janey, follow a little advice: choosing kid-friendly movie adaptations or games related to toy lines is a safe bet.

With that in mind, @play decided to take a look at the recent releases from THQ, with Barnyard and Monster House related to the big budget CGI summer films, and Bratz: Forever Diamondz a title based around the Bratz line of dolls that currently battles Barbie for shelf space.

Monster House

As I was tasked with reviewing children's games, I decided to take a look at them with the help of the only suitable reviewers I could imagine: children.

Unfortunately, I didn't happen to know any. Luckily, however, a friend's son was willing to take part, and it's with the help of Will, a 5 year old Toronto native, that I took a look at the first two titles, Barnyard and Monster House.

It was in the process of opening the titles that I realized that the ESRB's rating for Barnyard and Monster House was "E+10"; which classes "everyone" as "10 and up". Thankfully, however, a voluntary rating, and Will's parent remained in the room at all times.

Despite being 5 years younger than the apparently intended audience, Will quickly understood the controls and roughly understood the objective of the game. In Monster House, the player controls the three characters featured in the film as they explore the titular mansion, destroying enemies (almost exclusively possessed furniture) with a water gun. The game is a largely linear trip through a series of enemy-filled rooms, and can quickly become repetitive. Will was most excited on realizing that the main character, if left to idle, would scratch his posterior, regularly stopping to let the character scratch whatever itch was haunting him.

The game features vibrant graphics highly evocative of the movie, and is likely to be enjoyed by anyone who liked the movie, but for younger gamers this can be a little too scary and for older gamers it's likely to be too repetitive.

Barnyard

The initial glaring error common to the entire Barnyard world, that male cows have udders (scenes of a male cow milking himself are entirely disturbing) was something that Will wasn't concerned by, though he did see fit to complain about some gaming tropes that I've come to take as granted, such that destructible objects always seem to have something useful inside ("why would a bale of hay have money in it?")

Despite such idiosyncrasies, Barnyard is a fun game that comes across like Grand Theft Auto for kids; with an open world to explore on foot or in vehicles and missions (in this case really mini-games) to be performed for animals. Nothing in the game is anywhere near as objectionable as the content of the GTA games (unless you consider mailman teasing a crime) and though the game slowly works its way through its plot, younger gamers could be perfectly happy being set down with only one of the mini-games. The controls were easy enough for Will to understand quickly, and he certainly preferred the title over Monster House, though he found the missions challenging.

Bratz: Forever Diamondz

As I didn't have a girl child at hand, it was left to my thankfully understanding girlfriend, Kate, to help me at least understand the female perspective on a title like Bratz: Forever Diamondz.

Bratz: Forever Diamondz casts the player as the Bratz, 4 disturbingly proportioned females of indeterminate age that run a fashion magazine on a nationwide search for the "hottest young fashion designers". The game is functionally a third person adventure, but the player expected to do little other than go to the shops to buy Bratz merchandise by the plot.

While the game does feature several mini-game sections (simple button sequence pushing fashion shows) and make-up and clothes designing section, each of the activities is extremely limited, and the general drive of the game seems to be entirely about purchasing more and more Bratz products (all of which, of course, are genuinely available on toy store shelves.)

As a female, Kate took particular issue with the general portrayal of women in the game as vacuous fashion obsessed bimbos, and that male characters often appear to cat call the player. "In whose mind is it acceptable for a young girl to think that it's okay for a man to yell 'Hey good lookin'" at her?"

To put it simply, Bratz is dull and offensive, and to make matters worse is one of the ugliest games I've yet seen on the PS2 or Gamecube. Girl gamers deserve far better, and young girls would more likely appreciate either of the other THQ titles above this.