Before you turn the page in horror, consider two important facts. First, if you're not a girl under twelve, Barbie Horse Adventures isn't for you. Secondly, if you are, this is a really decent attempt at a riding game.

What starts out as a holiday for Christie, Teresa and Barbie (who, for a change, aren't sold separately), turns into a rescue mission after a giant storm. The foals have fled from Silver Valley Stables and our anorexic heroine must travel through nine levels to rescue them. Some foals are trapped by simple puzzles, solved by finding a quest item, while others are just moping around in fields.

Barbie walks grindingly slowly, probably a result of her skinny legs. Thankfully, every horse rescued becomes a friend that you can ride or lead around by the rein. The only proviso is that you care for your four-legged buddy by washing, stroking and feeding him. Fail to do so and your friendship meter will drop and you'll have to replay the current level. It's impossible to 'die’, but your friendship will also deplete if you're hit by rolling logs or attacked by a wild animal.

Amazingly, this is where Barbie struts her stuff as a Sam Fisher wannabe. It's possible to throw apples to distract enemies, letting you slip stealthily by. There's nothing too challenging here. In fact, the only difficult thing is making your horse turn responsively. It's quite fiddly, especially when you want to line him up for jumping over logs.

Mini-games set against the clock are fairly challenging, and more importantly help to break up somewhat overlong bouts of exploration and collecting items. The best one involves chasing a wild horse. You have to stay close for about ten seconds while Barbie readies the lasso. Pleasingly, all the mini games can be accessed from the start menu and played split-screen against a friend.

As mentioned, exploration makes up the meat and potatoes (or broccoli and potatoes if you're a veggie like Babs). There are 200 coins to find in every level which is a few too many unless you're determined to buy all of Barbie’s outfits. It's just like real life!

You can also clothe and customise the horses, down to the finest detail. There's a lot to do just in the stable area, not to mention that each of the nine levels takes about 90 minutes to fully complete.

Aside from longevity, the standard of graphics and presentation is very good. The textures are a little rough and invisible walls become tiresome at times, but that's hardly going to bother Barbie's target audience. The fact is that anyone young enough to appreciate the plastic princess will eat this up like sugar lumps.

1. Very unique
2. Not too difficult
3. Two-player games

1. Horse movement unresponsive at times
2. Too cutesy!

Power
Barbie looks the part with all her impossible proportions. Settings are pretty with lots of detail.

Style
The sickly-sweet voiceover and soundtrack work well. Plenty of realistic horse noises! Neigh!

Immersion
Exploring huge levels is fun at first but becomes samey. Mini-games and new costumes help.

Lifespan
Can be finished in about ten hours, or 15-20 hours if you want to find every last coin and costume item.

Summary
Good clean fun for children. It's also Xbox's only horse-riding title (besides Dynasty Warriors 4) so equestrians can rejoice.