publisher: Ubisoft

This shopping feature will continue to load items when the Enter key is pressed. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading. You Can Tell a game's going to be dire when the publisher refuses to send you a copy: Pippa Funnell's second outing on PC is just such an example. You play as a young girl who's been sent to a posh horsey college, where your arrival is welcomed with a dodgy cut-scene akin to a Harry Potter movie, but without any of the characters, settings.

Game mode: single player

Pippa Funnell: Take the Reins is a unique game representing a niche genre of horse riding simulations and a sequel to Pippa Funnell: The Stud Farm Inheritance. Both games are endorsed by Pippa Funnell, a famous sportswoman, an Olympic medalist in equestrianism (e.g. two silver medals in the Olympics in Sydney and Athens).

In spite of relatively small target audience among video game players, the developer took effort to enrich the second game in the series, providing it with an interesting storytelling, and improving gameplay, both in terms of content and mechanics. In Take the Reins you play as a 17-year-old girl invited to an elite horse riding school in Scotland, where future equestrianism champions are trained. Initially, your skills are not very impressive, but through hard work and good organization (which is aided by a customizable time table) you quickly improve, taking part in regular tournaments and competitions. Obviously, your goal is to become the academy champion, but in the meantime you can have many experiences, including relations with others, like making new friendships, and having other moments important in a life of a teenage girl. However, not all people are friendly to you and willing to help you get to the top – there are surely those who do not like you and would gladly welcome the news of your expulsion from the school. Of course, you cannot let that happen.

When you start achieving your first successes, the world will open up for you – a colorful journey to the United States and Morocco awaits you, where you compete against young riders from all over the world. On your journey you meet famous champion Pippa Funnell, who can teach you a lot. You can train on 18 courses and take part in 6 championships, competing for fame, fortune, and glory. This game expands on communication with your horse to better understand its needs, in time allowing you to build a strong bond of trust with the animal. What is more, horses and riders animations were improved thanks to motion capture technique.

Game score 8.3 / 10 calculated out of 146 players' votes.

age requirements: everyone

System requirements

PC / Windows

Recommended: Pentium III 800 MHz, 256 MB RAM, graphic card 32MB (GeForce 2 or better), 800 MB HDD