E3 2008: Bella Sara

If you aren't familiar with Bella Sara, then you probably aren't a 6-to-12-year-old girl. So let's fill you in: Bella Sara is a series of collectible cards featuring fantastical horses, life-affirming quotations, and redeemable codes. The horse pictures are pretty self-explanatory; they feature fancily drawn horses in fantastical settings. The quotations are happy thoughts, like "You don't have to be perfect. Do your best and you'll be just right." The really interesting part is the redeemable code.

You can go online to Bella Sara's Web site and open your own online stable. Then, by entering the codes from the cards that you've collected, you can populate your stable with the awesome horses from your cards! If you think that sounds like a fantastic idea, about 10 million little girls already agree with you. Enter Codemasters' upcoming Nintendo DS and PC video games of the same name. Each copy of the game will come with a one-of-a-kind horse card that can be activated on Bella Sara's Web site. On top of that, the game will cast you as a little girl in the land of North of the North. Evidently, there's been a huge storm, and you and your horses must save the day by collecting apples, lighting torches, and generally doing good.

However, if your horses are dirty and hungry, they won't be in the mood to aid anybody. So you have to make sure to take care of them by feeding them, giving them water, and brushing off their dirty coats until they're nice and shiny and clean. Then, once your horse feels alright, you can embark on any of the minigames associated with quests in the North of the North.

The minigame that we saw was like a race on a track, except that there was a well in the middle of the course, and several sickly looking trees spread around. We had to go to the well, get water, and then travel to each of the trees to rejuvenate them before time ran out. However, we had to be careful because the road was littered with obstacles. No problem, though, for we were riding no ordinary horse, but rather a winged horse named Nike. We simply got up some speed, and then we and our winged horse literally flew around the course, having fun and saving nature along the way.

Some minigames will require you to do things like light torches. But where do you get the fire? Well, one of the six horses that you can eventually collect is actually on fire itself. So to pass the torch stage, you must collect this horse. To unlock a horse, you have to collect its card and the cards of its friends. To do this, you'll need to complete tasks and explore the farm. Or, you can just buy cards with the horseshoe money that you've saved in your happy adventures.

This may not be the game for you if you don't like horses, but if the thought of riding your very own awesome Pegasus (and dressing it, too!) makes you clap your hands with joy, you might want to look into Bella Sara when it comes out for the PC and DS this fall, whether you're a girl or a boy.