Equestrian Game

Ride until your hearts content!

Professional horseback riding is no simple matter. While plenty of cowboy westerns, medieval tales and even modern stories tell us that it is a simple matter of mustering up the courage to get up on the saddle, the fact of the matter is - these horses take plenty to ride.

• Learn horseback riding basics
• Ride gorgeous horses
• Become an equestrian!

Time to Go Pro with Ride!

Enter Ride!, a straight up, full- on horseback riding simulator and equestrian game that leaves out almost no details when hashing out how much time, effort and dedication it takes to fully train both a horse and a rider. We won't sugar coat it, this game is more than it is serious. With that being said, the entirety of the gameplay has been designed around one core factor: a target audience of hardcore, purist, horseback riding enthusiasts.

You see, not everyone can afford a stable, let alone a good horse and the amount of time and resource it takes to maintain and train one. Not everyone can make it to a training camp let alone qualify for regional finals. But with Ride, all that, and more becomes yours. The game manages to fit in various factors of pro- level horseback riding events and allows players to either specialize in one or to compete in all. Each category has its own unique style of gameplay which separates it from the others - making it truly as if you truly have three different types of competitions to join.

Serious Over Fun

There is no doubt about it, Ride! caters to a very, very niche crowd. If you have very little love for horseback riding, or are simply looking for a quick game to play, you will want to pass this up and move on. In fact, if you are curious about the world of professional horseback riding but have no idea what it entails, it is also a good idea to not play this game until you have done your research - because the difficulty level and the seriousness of this title has a strong potential to discourage players.

That being said, if you are a player with a strong passion for horseback riding and have always been curious what it would be like to be part of the professional circuit, then you will most definitely love this game.

Ride! takes on all the important factors for professional league events. It penalizes players for the slightest mistakes and winning the top spot is takes not only skill, but plenty of patience as well. The game's difficulty presents itself in three main aspects: the first is the controls itself - which has been made to require as much deft and control as it would take to manage real stirrups and reins.

The second is in the horse's own stats and temperament. Much like in real life, the horse is a living being and has a mind of its own. Racing cars in real life and in games is simple, as what you input translates directly into what your vehicle does. The same is not true for riding a horse. You may tell it to jump, but if the horse feels like it is not in a good position to follow your order, it will outright refuse you. This little factor may seem like a major annoyance to the general player, but for horse- lovers, this is a glorious bit of gameplay to enjoy. After all, creating a strong and trusting bond between rider and horse has always been important - to have it implemented in a game certainly wins points for realism (though yes, it will truly be annoying at times).

As for the stats, this game will have players on the training course for hours on end. As interesting as it may be to take part in various training activities - endlessly grinding for stats has never been fun in any game - much less in Ride!. Fortunately, the game provides players with an option to automate the training sequences (though if you are pretty good with the controls, you can earn higher stat points by doing it manually). In any case, the game mirrors the real life need to go out there on the field on a daily basis to constantly train your horse (and yourself) to be a better rider. At the very least, repeatedly doing some of the training exercises will hone your control skills - which is important for the competitions.

Lastly, the final difficulty of the game lies in its strict requirements. From the penalties to the strong lap runs of your competitors, there is plenty of reason to stay vigilant throughout each match and avoid as many mistakes as possible. In most instances, a single mistake can mean the difference between first place and taking a spot in the final three. While it may seem unforgiving, the pressure and the difficultly are much like that of the real thing. Be warned, winning an event will require a player's utmost focus, skills and also good horse stats. Unless you have truly exceptional keyboard skills, expect to lose the first or even second season before you can manage to qualify for the regional finals - let alone win it.

How the Game Works

Ride! is split up into three basic game types. One focuses entirely on running a course with obstacles under a certain amount of time. The second requires players to be proficient in three types of events. The third focuses only on the sequences where a horse has to perform certain choreographed steps.

All three game types are split up into four basic portions. The first is the tutorial - as one would expect, the tutorial provides players with a guide to how the game system works, the controls for the horse and what is needed to win in the competition. Unlike other tutorials however, Ride! can be pretty strict. Mistakes are rarely tolerated and more often than not, the game will force players to keep repeating a portion of a tutorial until they accomplish it perfectly. Indeed, much of the game's innate difficulty is already evident in the tutorial alone.

Once the tutorial is finished, the game allows players to decide on a horse. There is a limited number of choices for a horse in each of the game types, and while there are some slight differences between each, players should simply choose a horse according to their preference - the stat difference can be fixed later on as players will be able to increase any stat through training.

After choosing a horse, the game moves on the second part: training. Training a horse will take about thirteen days or almost two whole weeks. Here, players will be able to allocate a day for raising one of the horse's stats (stats to be trained differ according to game type chosen). As mentioned, the training portion can be played manually or left to the game to automate. Playing the training portion manually will have players focus on a task similar to the tutorial - though in this case, making a single mistake will cost you the whole day and earn little in terms of progress. Succeed, and the horse will have a significant stat increase. Automating the training often results in an acceptable, mid- range increase; though there is a slight possibility that the auto- training earns little as well. Unless a player is truly skilled, it is often safer to run the automated training.

At the end of the two weeks, the fourteenth day, players will take part in a competition. The competition, like the training, is reflective of the game type that has been chosen. While it is not necessary to win the first place (or even place in the top three), the game awards players for earning a good rank by unlocking items. In any case, participating in an event will earn the player points; the better the performance, the higher the points. At the end of several competitions, if the player is among the top ten riders in terms of points, they will be invited to participate in a special match - and the first one that players get to try is the regional finals.

As with the regular end-of-2 weeks competitions, the finals are pretty high scale on the difficulty rating - meaning to say, if you want to make it to the top three positions, you need to perform at your best. Hopefully, you would have made the best of the training by focusing on the stats that complement your weak points the best.

The Downside of Ride!

One giant peeve we have with Ride! is the user interface. Outside of the horseback riding portions, players need to spend a lot of time in the menu. Whether you are determining what the tasks for the week are to be done or simply choosing what colors to wear for your rider, the interface is unintuitive and confusing to use. Pressing the forward and back buttons takes a while to get used to and the lack of pop- up labels will make you wonder what each button on the screen does.

This is a major issue when it comes to raising your horse's stats. Despite the fact that an initial introduction from the trainer will give you a quick idea of what each stat does, a small pop- up window giving you details would serve as a great way to be reminded about what each stat does. Considering the fact that the game has plenty of stats and figures to keep track of, there is simply no way to memorize what everything does unless you manually jot them all down the first time that the trainer describes it to you.

Speaking of the trainer, he is the only person you ever truly interact with in the game and for the most part, he is extremely annoying. Most of his lines tend to be delivered in a very snotty and elitist manner - even his praises feel empty, often referring to his own efforts as the reason for your success. Make a mistake and his criticisms are even worse, more than half the time, the frustration factor of Ride! can be attributed to this NPC. As such, this the one part of the game where audio controls truly shine: for muting out his intolerable voice overs.

As we stated early on, anyone taking on this equestrian game should come prepared with plenty of patience, but not even that will save players from the highly repetitive feel of the game. Once you have gotten past the first regional finals in all three modes, you have practically played everything the equestrian game has to offer. Not even being able to customize your rider and horse gear helps - in fact, the items you earn as you progress feels plenty lacking in terms of variety and style. The horses themselves are also limited in choice - as such that you cannot customize the color, coat and patterns of the steeds.

Also, each of the three gameplay modes will require a player to choose a different horse. This means that even if you took part of the dressage competitions and have increased the stats of your horse, you will not be able to bring it to the mix- events mode. You will have to start with a completely new horse and have to raise the dressage- associated stats manually.

Stiff Competition

But once you get past the issues above, you can truly enjoy the deep gameplay that Ride! offers to the most talented of players. The horse controls are pretty complex and it actually pays off to be attentive to the tutorials as well as manually playing the training sessions to get the full hang of the equestrian game for girls. Sure, you will risk losing a day's worth of stat progress if you fail, but if you are willing to play this game in full for a long period of time, then sacrificing the whole of the first season to master the controls will actually pay off.

The first set of competitions you get to compete in is the show jumps. In this mode, players have to complete a run of course that is littered with plenty of obstacles to leap over. And it is no simple task as each jump requires three important factors: lining up the horse properly, approaching with the proper speed and keeping your balance when you land. Failing the first two completely and the horse will refuse to jump and you will earn a penalty. If you fail to keep your balance and fall off the horse, you are automatically disqualified.

Those are not the only things players have to be careful about. The game will not guide you about the proper course to take. While sticking to the dirt path will help, there are times when the turns become confusing to follow and finding the next jump to make will force you to spin around looking for it. Fortunately, the equestrian game allows you to take a good look around the course prior to each competition - this will let you review the right route and plan your jumps.

By accomplishing the course under a set amount of time and without acquiring too many penalties, it is possible to earn a pretty high ranking - even taking first place if you have almost no mistakes and streamline your route.

The second type of event is the race. Unlike other horse races where riders have to compete alongside each other, you only need to focus on getting the best time. Races will follow a certain route, has a few jumps and requires players to keep track of the horse's stamina. Keeping stamina consumption low will mean having to sacrifice a bit of speed, so players have to constantly change the pace of the horse to suit the course's needs. As a general rule, long straight dashes would benefit from a stamina consuming gallop, while navigating a turn or approaching a jump allows you to slow down and let the horse regain some stamina.

The same jumping requirements of the show jump also apply to the race, though there is much less to be wary about in terms of difficulty: keeping balance and setting a good speed is much easier and there is more room to adjust if you make a mistake. But be wary, falling off a horse still results in disqualification.

The third and last type of competition is the dressage. This is where players get to see all the complicated types of trained trots and gallops a horse can do. From the pirouette to the counter working trot, players will have to perform each move as per industry standards - and the standards are pretty high, the dressage is also considered an Olympic event. Of course, that's the real life difficulty. Ride! has a much easier system for competing in the dressage in the form of a Dance Dance Revolution style rhythm button tapping.

In terms of overall game difficulty, this is the easiest to perform of all three events. Easy to learn and muster, players with good hand- eye coordination can expect to win even the harder dressage competition even during the first season. The only drawback here is that the button timing is not connected to the background music - which is counter- intuitive considering the interface that is being provided. The game still maintains a degree of challenge as the timing has to be truly in- sync in order to attain the perfect rating - getting a miss or bad rating is a lot more common than one would expect too.

These three events are the core of the Ride's horseback riding gameplay sequences. In between, players also have various training sequences to take part in. These sequences are basically short courses that focus only on one specific control in terms of difficulty (a balance training course will require you to perform all the proper parts of a proper jump, but only the balancing factor will be difficult). For the dressage training, players will simply have to focus on a few patterns associated to a specific routine.

The Fun Factor

As tough as this equestrian game for girls can be, it is also quite fun in its own right. No amount of repetition is overdone when it comes to reiterating the level of difficulty and specific target market for Ride! but if you fit the bill of a purist horse- riding gaming enthusiast, you would find this game very hard to put down.

The graphics lack a little flair in the user interface for a 3d horse riding game, but in the actual game itself, you get a gracefully animated horse, nicely detailed courses and the visual satisfaction of actually taking part in a world class competition. If you love watching the dressage competitions or show jumping, this game places you right in the heat of the action.

The audio fails a little in terms if variety and the voice over from the trainer can be quite horrendous to listen to at times (not to mention those truly degrading lines). But be sure to keep the speakers when taking part of the events as the pounding of hooves will keep your riding spirits up for the rest of the match.

The controls will play quite a number on your sense of timing and dexterity, but once mastered, can be truly rewarding. Ride truly straddles the fence between having plenty of replay value and being downright repetitive especially in the training sequences, but if you enjoy taking your horse through the hoops one at the time, then this game is a definite must have for you.

The Verdict

Niche games are the most difficult to judge in terms of overall value. After all, to a very specific crowd, Ride is an amazing title that delivers dozens of hours of gameplay and plenty of content. For everyone else however, the game is over- focused on its training sequences, has complicated controls and feels unfinished in terms of visual aesthetics. So what's the balance? The simple fact that if you are interested in Ride! then chances are, you are a fan of horseback riding and this game will appeal to your needs. Sure, it has enough issues in so many levels that even riding fans will find a few peeves of their own. But overall, the game delivers what it promises: a true equestrian simulation.

Download for Windows

Once you have downloaded the game why not check out our full guide on playing Ride.

We also recommended trying out Planet Horse which offers a different equestrian experience for those wanting to ride more freely in countryside and through many different lands.