My Little Pony is a fairly simple game where you take the role of one of four Ponies who are helping to make the Friendship Ball the "must attend event" in Pony Land. There is a new baby pony named Sparkleberry Swirl coming to town and there is just so much to do! As the ponies all rush around preparing, your pony must explore the world, get herself ready to party and help out any other ponies that need it.

You start the game at your pony's house, where you can decorate the room with different colors of wall, bedspread, and so on. There is also a desk where your child can print out the typical coloring book pages and off-line activities that come with most kid's games. (There are even recipes for baking cakes, in case you get hungry and want to spend the afternoon cleaning the kitchen.) Once you leave your house, you are presented with a "to-do list" that shows you all of the things you need to do to be able to go to the Friendship Ball. These activities range from picking out an outfit to baking a cake, to helping other ponies with their chores. Armed with this agenda, you step out into the short, narrow world and explore.

The game is very linear, literally, as the world is only a few screens long and conveniently wraps so that young children don't get stuck. Your pony walks back and forth by following the mouse icon without any clicking involved. When you want your pony to interact with something or go into a house, you simply click on it. Some objects interact with your pony such as a squirrel that eats nuts (or hamburgers) when you click it, bushes that look at you, and other items that show an animation when clicked. Of course, you can also talk to other ponies, most of whom need your help to complete their tasks.

There are only a few places to go in the game, and a few ponies to talk to. After talking to these ponies, you usually help them by rounding up items they need to complete their jobs. For example, one pony is building kites and needs you to pick up three pieces of the kites for her. You then navigate your pony around the level, looking for the parts you need to complete your task, and then deliver them back to the grateful pony.

Other tasks require you to complete jobs inside one of the shops. For example, in one shop you play dress-up and get to decorate your pony in the latest fashions. In another shop you help bake a cake, and then decorate it for the ball. You get to choose the ingredients you use and throw them into the mixer to create your own recipe, and some of the ingredients are, well, unorthodox. ("Eew, gross, mushrooms?!?" my daughter said, and then promptly dropped them in the mixer.)

Once all of your tasks are complete, you can enter the My Little Pony castle and decorate it for the ball, then invite all your friends in. After mingling and chatting with your appreciative guests, you leave the castle and, well, that's about it; the credits roll and the game ends. My daughter and I "beat" the game in about an hour playing together, though we didn't really spend a lot of time stopping to smell the daisies. However, she had spent quite a bit of time with the game before I played, and had pretty much figured out everything on her own, playing and beating the game in probably 3 or 4 hours at four-year-old pace. Also, as any parent knows, kids find a lot of joy in doing the same repetitive things over and over again, and games that let them create, such as the cake decorating in this game, will keep them zoned in for hours.

In our household, like many others, the kids have their own PC that was top of the line back in 2000. Even though kid's games are traditionally simple and less harsh on resources, many of the newer games out there are starting to just not work. Nothing is harder on a parent than a psyched up small child really wanting to play a game, only to find out that their PC won't run it. Amidst the sobbing, you desperately plead with your child telling them they can play the game on YOUR computer. Then you spend months trying to either get your computer back, or cleaning peanut butter out of the keyboard.

Thankfully, My Little Pony is NOT one of those games. After a relatively quick install, the game loaded and ran great on the kids Pentium 3 700Mhz. However, it does require DirectX 9, which comes included on the CD. Some of the cut-scenes were are a little blurry, but its hard to tell if that was the PC or just the quality of the video.

My Little Pony PC Play Pack is a reasonably priced distraction for any My Little Pony fan. While the game is pretty shallow, it does come with an "exclusive" baby Sparkleberry Swirl pony figure, which adds to the value. They won't learn a lot except memory and hand-eye coordination and an overwhelming fondness of the color pink. But at the right age group (probably around ages 3 to 5), this game will give them a few days worth of fun, and you'll get to relive your childhood a little.