Thursday, August 17, 2006

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron "Forever Free"

So I picked up another horse adventure game a few weeks ago. You might have heard of the movie, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.

The first time I saw the movie was when me and a bunch of animation students were trying to finish our walk/run cycles in 2nd year in the animation room, and we put it on as background entertainment.
The animation was pretty great, but I was having trouble sitting through the Bryan Adams songs every 10 minutes. I don't really have anything against him; I like a few songs here and there, but not a song every 10 minutes. And they all sound like the same song. But whatever....I still liked the film, so when I saw the game for 10 bucks at the same Toys R Us I picked up the gem, Champion Dreams, I couldn't refuse buying it.

The cashier asked me if I needed a gift receipt (I assume she thought I was buying the game for someone else. Perhaps someone a lot younger). So I said no, but I didn't elaborate and say it was for me.
I started it when I got home on my laptop...I think Aaon has had enough horse games on his computer, and I wanted to see if the ol' lappy 3000 was buff enough to handle this game.

The Game:
You play as Spirit, and you and your horse friends have been captured by various people and are put to work. So, when you start you are in a pen with another horse who wants to escape as well, but he's too old to jump the fence. The fence is pretty annoying too, cause you have to be lined up exactly, and be clicking on the left mouse button to make sure you're going fast enough to get over it.

So once you get out of there (you can come back to help the other horse later) you go around to the different areas freeing your horse friends AND taking care of your girlfriend horse Rain. You have to collect some arrowheads and trade them to the trader to get a water pouch, so everytime she's all like "Yo, I need some water." you have to dunk it in the stream and take it to her. Sometimes she needs food too, so you can find random apples on the ground, or buy them from that trader dude.
In order to get faster you have to chase this rabbit around. Once you catch him, he gives you a carrot. The more carrots you get the faster you go, but it wears off after a bit...so you're constantly clicking the mouse to keep running.

And when you get enough carrots to run somewhat fast, you can race the eagle. I can't remember what you get for beating him, it's probably not worth remembering.
I'm sure there's lots of kids that will like this game, but since I'm 25 now, it was pretty easy. I finished the whole game in 3 days...but it shouldn't have taken that long.
The first time I had to stop playing after a couple hours because my computer froze up. The next day I didn't play because I was busy doing other things, and then the third day I finished it.

That being said...it's not quite as involving as Champion Dreams!!! but, it's probably something easy enough for kids to pick up and have fun with. It was only 10 bucks. I do like the fact you can kick things too (like barrels. They usually have bunch of arrowheads hiding inside)
So yeah, I'm probably not going to play it again, but maybe I'll save it for my future kid(s).

11 comments:

Sam said...

Oh man! That's amazing, you got that game. And here I was thinking I was the horse person in the bunch, but it actually turns out I was horribly wrong :D

Anonymous said...

Good luck, your life seems interesting!

Peace and Love!

Dominic Ebacher
ebacherdom.blogspot.com

Erica Pitt said...

Thanks for the kind words. Strange things amuse me...which I then post about. I hope people like it.

Anonymous said...

I got to playing this game while my daughter was in school. But I have reached the point that all I can save are 150 arrowheads and I need 200 for the spyglass. How did you get through that part? What am I doing wrong? Amy

Anonymous said...

In reply to Anonymous' question,
you must buy the largest bag to be able to hold 200 arrowheads. Once you have the largest bag you can hold 250.

Anonymous said...

i cannot catch the first rabbit. i even got onto the second island and freed all the horses. but the stupid rabbit in the first place will not cooperate. everytime i do catch him. he says something and runs of again. this wouldnt be a problem if i understood what he was saying. unfortunantly. its in russian. and i do not speak it and neither does my computer. it comes out in weird letters. so please.
why isnt the first rabbit cooperating?!?!?!

Anonymous said...

So... I found this game, dusted it off and played it again... it took me less than a few hours, but I've almost got it beat. I have a question for you now. How do you get the coal to the last guy in the mill town? It's been years since I beat the game on another computer, and I have NO IDEA. Help would be appreciated!

Anonymous said...

I have no idea how you get the coal to the coal miner to free the horse!!! Please help me!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I found the game and I can't get out of the corral HELP!!!

Anonymous said...

To get the coal, you have to use the trolley thing on the tracks and kick some coal on the mountain side into the trolley. Thenn, you push it to Sierra. It took me a week to figure that out... XD

Anonymous said...

This game is nostalgic for me. I played it again today and it's way too easy for an adult, but still fun if you like Spirit. I think it's a nice touch that you get to run around Homeland even after you finish the game. The only thing I cannot find is the last golden arrowhead, but that's not a big deal. My only gripe with the game is that the music for each area stops playing after just a minute or so, and I like the music.