Thursday, January 9, 2014

REVIEW - Barbie™ Dreamhouse Party™ (PC)

I'm no stranger to Barbie™ games. In fact, you might say I'm a bit of a Barbie™ game enthusiast. How lucky, then, that I was gifted Barbie™ Dreamhouse Party™ on Steam this Christmas. They say not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but they say nothing about brushing its teeth.




Barbie™ Dreamhouse Party™ is ostensibly a party game, with all the implications of multiplayer fun times that brings. It's in the goddamn title. And yet...


Barbie™ throws one shitty-ass party.



Even the screenshots suggest very strongly that Barbie™'s party is something like Mario's.

Yeah, that's right, apply the powder directly to the cornea.

Anyway, that horrible disappointment aside, Barbie™ Dreamhouse Party™ is still a game about playing a series of minigames and...well, that's it.

The game begins by throwing you into the main hall of Barbie™'s unreasonably luxurious home. As Barbie™, you can offer a tepid greeting to your boyfriend Ken, or flirt with Ken's much cooler friend Ryan.

"Ken won't even look at me anymore."

From there, your choices are to play one of the nine included minigames, or turn the game off. You'd be forgiven for choosing the latter, but let's assume you didn't.

The story here is that Barbie™ has for some reason invited a mega bitch to her "party". While the rest of the group is having fun playing a videogame, Raquelle decides that shit needs to start going her way ASAP, so she begins messing with Barbie™'s super-villain control room that.....she has, for some reason.


"Shall we play a game? How about Global Thermonuclear War."

Because Raquelle is a dumbass, this accidentally sets Barbie™'s house to Party Game Mode which, once again, I feel the need to stress that this was something that Barbie™ felt strongly about enough to have installed. This means every room is locked by an impenetrable steel door and the house is under the control of a much less charming Wheatley from Portal 2.

"Please let me eat some of your hair."

What all this means is that Not Wheatley demands that the girls run through a series of trials. These involve applying makeup and dressing up, which the robot is very insistent you do over and over again.

Each mini game is preempted by a sequence in which you and the three other AI girls must search for an item in one of the rooms and place it on the correct pedestal.

That's not appropriate scavenger hunt attire, Barbie™.

In practice though, Barbie™ must place all four items on the correct pedestal, because the AI will always put it on the wrong one and then just walk away like it's all cool, continuing to look for items that don't exist. Statistically one would think they would get it right by chance at some point, but one would be wrong. One should really look at that in oneself. Even if everything ran smoothly and Raquelle stopped being a bitch on purpose just once, the necessity of this part of the game would still be questionable at best. There's no challenge, no sense of competition, no reward for doing better or taking less time and similarly no punishment for just sitting on your ass other than missing out on one of the great minigames.

Oh, the minigames.
 
There's not one, but two that involve dressing up by matching clothing to an example the robot provides. The trick here is to button mash the confirm button while cycling left and right. There's no penalty for picking the wrong one, other than the robot saying "Hey, be better" or some shit.

Better? BETTER!? Raquelle looks like she's about to fucking vomit.

There's a very slow rhythm game, where you press a single button every five seconds or so. There's a game where you throw cupcakes in a pile (You can't throw them at the other girls. I tried.), a game where shake your little tush on the catwalk, a game where you catch falling boxes, and a game where you get trapped in bubbles. The best game is by far the one where you groom a horse though. It's great fun to wash, dry and brush such a magnificent beast.


There's also one where you-


Ahhhhhh! What the hell, man!?

31 comments:

  1. I bet Barbie™ and Ryan™ don't have nearly as good a time as you and I do when we have our duets.

    And unlike Barbie™, we won't write people out of our family.

    Final Verdict - Shallowest Game Ever/Dreams Really Do Come True

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  2. Congratulations on 200 published articles. You sure mashed that banana.

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  3. I, too, have played my fair share of Barbie games, they were all GBA games though. Secret Agent Barbie was my favorite but a good runner up was Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses.

    Brand name be damned these were some highly entertaining platformers.

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    Replies
    1. RES? What the hell? G'DAY MATE.

      Delete
    2. :D I may have been totally inactive but I do watch RobotBlog! Wassagoin' on, Samus?

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    3. It's ROBOBLOG. Like ROBOCOP. Dammit, it will be a thing!

      Not a whole lot man, been playing Bioshock: Infinite. What a wicked game. What about yourself?

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    4. I've been fairly occupied with BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend myself. Such a great game. Can't wait for ChronoPhantasma.

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    5. Ex'llent. Haven't had much experience with them, only Calamity Trigger, seemed a lot more complex than something like Tekken/DOA etc.

      I just really don't play console at all anymore. And now the greatest game of all time is on Steam, I can just play it there.

      Delete
    6. *madly searches Steam*

      But...

      "Persona 4 Golden

      No results were returned for that query."

      Haha. That joke never gets old.

      Delete
    7. Gorilla Arriving Atop Magical Prized SteedJanuary 9, 2014 at 10:00 PM

      Whoa there! Whoa there Juniper!

      *dismounts*

      *looks you up and down*

      Ho there, this is it? This is the HERO you spoke of? Well, he certainly does not look the part.

      A. "Evening, and well met, High Lady Gorilla, Queen of Magical Steeds. I am Resulli Of Wolven-storm-dale." -
      B. "Goodbye."

      Ah yes, well met... and please forgive my.. my outburst of sorts. You see, these blasted wild boars have kept me awake all night, as I constantly am awakened to the infernal sound of them tormenting my poor, sweet horses.

      A. "Can I be of assistance?" -
      B. "Goodbye."

      Well, I suppose if you would really like to assist me in this matter, I can put you to use. See here young Resulli, slay 10 wild boars and bring me back their talons as proof, and I will disclose to you a fair amount of information on the town of Ferdok.

      (Once the quest is completed, you will also be able to choose your reward):
      - 10 copper - Rugged Cloak (+1 luck)

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    8. @ Babes. That joke never gets GOLD.

      @ Gorilla. Don't be ridiculous, Res could never stay focused on that quest.

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    9. xD At that point it's probably better to kill the NPC for their loot assuming they aren't needed for a quest later!

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    10. And I dunno about more complex than Tekken or DOA. Never really played any of those games. All I know is it's super flashy and I likes me some flash in my fighting games. Speaking of Persona 4...the same people who made BlazBlue made a fighting game for Persona 4 and I want it reeeeeally badly.

      Delete
    11. Always kill the NPCs, mate. Always.


      Arena? I don't have that yet. May I suggest build a budget 4 on Steam? :D

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  4. I PROCLAIM THEE, KENDON OF DREAMHOUSE!

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  5. Hey, ladies, what's up? Come check out my headliner on Saturday 12 April 2014 in Bilston UK, it's going to be a hooter.

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  6. Hey, yall. This game sounds like it could be fun with a couple of friends and couple of beers. Hey speaking of that, a couple of friends of mine are going to be passing through here later, it''s ok, they're with me.

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  7. *drives through topic in Cadillac*

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    Replies
    1. I can see you, your brown skin shining in the sun

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    2. Barbie, if you read this please listen to me. I'm sorry about what you saw when you walked in on me and Todd. We were just practicing football moves, such as "Hide the rawhide" and "Quarter-back Sneak" And the old classic "foot-shuffle in-the -butt"

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  8. *eyes up Dream Horse*

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  9. It just so happens I like being stabbed with swords. I presume we're talking about a good pounding? I have 4FOUR buttplugs at home, YOU THINK YOUR SWORD WILL BEAT THAT?

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  10. Oh wow, whoopdie-doo, He-Man is talking shit again. You goddamn pussy, go fuck yourself. We all did Barbie at some point, you cocksucking bitch.

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  11. Commenting CourtlandJanuary 10, 2014 at 10:05 PM

    Even Phil Fish entered Barbie™'s dream"house"

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  12. I too got a piece of Barbie™'s dream"house". Oh sweet nectar... it was glorious.

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  13. Barbie™'s Horse ButtercupJanuary 11, 2014 at 1:42 AM

    You wouldn't think it was so sweet if you saw what else she brushes.

    HEY-O

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  14. Let's start from the beginning. I will come right out and say it, I find the "behavior" exhibited here by a few of the commentators truly appalling. He-Man, your outbursts of anger and profanity have proven to me that you really are not ready for another long-term, "committed" relationship. You also exhibited an alarming lack of desire to take proper care of your pet cat, who seems to be completely out of control at this point.

    This man, "Luchalma", has put his heart and soul into this piece of literature, and to have a handful of you Nair-do-wells bicker over a platonic relationship that you have had in the past, frankly is extremely childish, and I recommend that the lot of you seek professional help. If you'll excuse me, Barbie and I have a private meeting scheduled in my office to discuss concerns regarding her sexuality.

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    Replies
    1. I did NOT have sexual relations with that woman.

      These allegations are false.

      *throws a shoe at Dr. Phil*

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