What can you say about a game like My Horse and Me? There’s really no explanation why it should exist, so where’s the reason that anyone should play it? The basic premise of the game is simple enough. Customize your horse and character to your liking, and then take them on an adventure through several real life competitions to become the king or queen (most likely queen) of the equestrian circuit. This game even features the seal of approval from the International Equestrian Federation, meaning that some time must have been put into this game to appease them right? Well, almost.

This game is just not fun. It tries desperately to be, but sadly it just can’t deliver in any sense of the word. Not even the little kid inside of you, who lets you play the most embarrassing of games and still have fun, will enjoy this game. There’s just not any substance to this game, and it starts to feel like this game was only a step or two away from having a Barbie license slapped on it, but maybe even they are getting higher standards than this.

The menus consist of rotating snow-globe-like contraptions that give you the basic options you’d expect in any game. Although the menus even seem to have a hard time loading as they will give you this wonderful little stutter before moving over to them. The game itself seems to have trouble deciphering all the little symbols scattered across the base of these damn globes. Once you get past these hiccups you can either take your horse into an event after some of the blandest tutorial sessions ever, or you can go to the My Horse and Me menu to give your pony that prideful mane you’ve always dreamed of having. For yourself you have the option to pick from four little girls and two boys as your character. So you can guess that the developers had a slightly more feminine audience in mind when shoveling out this disc. All little horse loving boys beware that you won’t get the selection that your fairer-skinned peers are receiving.

You might be able to overlook all of this if the game was in any way enjoyable but all you are left with is a game that has just fallen out of the horse, if you catch my drift. The controls are utterly unresponsive, and are difficult to master even if you have the patience for them. Since riding the horse down the path becomes a chore, the whole game just becomes a worthless endeavor. You might as well pop in Zelda: Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time and you’ll get a much more worthwhile horse-riding experience, plus an actual game thrown in.

But wait, you can partake in the exciting hobby of grooming your horse as well. Yeah, while it’s true that you can choose to brush your horse down with one of two exciting brushes, hard or soft, or water him down with the hose and sponge him off, it just doesn’t seem important when the horse just stands there and doesn’t respond. It becomes a virtual manifestation of My Little Pony, except on those dolls the hair actually moved. Here you just have this statue of a horse who will stand motionless as you proceed to brush, poke, spray, and wash their eyeball. There wouldn’t be any complaints here, but the game actually warns you to only use the hard brush on the body and the soft brush on the head. While I’m sure this holds true for any living, breathing horse, in this case it seriously doesn’t matter what you do to this poor animal. Heck, I’m pretty sure if it gave you a tool to clip their hooves you could start hacking away at their side and they wouldn’t mind one bit. This just makes this part of the game pointless to spend any time on. Your horse doesn’t get dirty and it doesn’t seem to care at all what you do to it, so why should you?

So, if you are really desperate for that horse riding experience that so many games haven’t delivered, then I’m sure all three of you will find happiness with this title. For the rest of you, please just stay away. I’m sure you’re already used to ignoring half of the Wii games out there anyway, so passing over this one should just come as second nature. Don’t worry though, there’s already a sequel in the works, meaning that you can waste another $50 on something worth $5.