Barbie Fashion Pack

"Barbie: Serving as a horrible role model now for a whole NEW generation."

Before I get started, I need to make one thing clear. I am a male. Yes, a male. Who played a Barbie game. Not that I thought I *would* enjoy it, but nothing could've prepared me for the depths of terribleness that this game has reached.

Now, I'm not a father, but if someday I become blessed with a daughter, I will be sure to never let her near a Barbie doll, ever. The unrealistic waistlines of the dolls are one thing, but this game... this game, is possibly the worst piece of software ever conceived.

Game play - 0/10

Let's look at the goal here. You pick one of four Barbie dolls, and you dress them up. I've seen this concept done on websites, for free, and with better graphics. But I'll get to graphics later.

In order to dress up your doll, you must win "games" to get each piece of clothing/makeup/whatever. I put the word games in quotation marks because they're not games at all. Take the lipstick game for example. You have a bunch of hearts floating across the screen, and you have to shoot the heart with your lipstick GUN with the matching color. You have to match six colors to get a new shade of lipstick. This may sound so awful that it might be enjoyable for pure stupidity's sake, but it's not. It's just bad. In fact, you can't lose. You have infinite shots and all the time in the world. You can win the game by standing in place and hitting the fire button until you win.

All of the other games follow the same idiotic suit.

And so you collect your fashion pieces. So what do you do with these fashion pieces? You look at them. There are two views of your doll, a closeup of the face, and a full body shot. No ending of the game, no animation posing, no anything. Just two still shots. That's IT. That's the entire game. It's terrible. Worse than terrible.

Story - 0/10

There is no story. No caper that Barbie is on. She just wants a new purse, apparently, and for you to stare blankly at it as a reward.

Sound - 0/10

The horribly blaring noise that passes for "music" in this game sent me scampering to turn the sound off before my eardrums ruptured. I should've just shut the game completely off instead.

Graphics - 0/10

Considering this was for the Gameboy Color, a generation of Gameboy games that had pretty advanced graphics over the first generation of Gameboy games, this is hideous. Barbie looks like she was hit in the face with a bench, and the "try it on" screens where you get to see the final product make the Amiga look like an XBox.

Overall - Waste of time/10

Even if I were into fashion, and a girl, I know I would still think this is one of the single worst games ever made, without exaggeration.

Not that I'm saying girls are or should be capable of liking this stuff. Female gamers out there, I feel your plight. I know you like normal video games like the rest of us. And stereotypical marketing like these horrible Barbie games has to stop.

I dislike it when people exclaim "Best game ever" on multiple games, or just generally exaggerate their reviews to make the game seem better or worse than it actually is. However, I have played hundreds of video games in my lifetime, and this is most definitely a contender for the worst ever. There is not a single redeeming factor about this game, and I pray to the parents out there, don't buy this game. Grand Theft Auto would be much less detrimental to the psyche.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 01/05/05