If you have a child or are a child in the lower grades or even pre-school then...
Early last year I decided to buy Barbie Fashion show for my girl as a birthday gift and it's been interesting ever since to watch her interact with this "game".
I deliberately put "game" in quotes, since technically I don't believe this to be a game in the pure sense of the word, and given that my personal collection contains quite a few titles (which the reader is free to view in my personal profile here on GameSpot), I am sure that my interpretation of "game" is correct in this context.
I would rather describe Barbie Fashion Show as a purely "creative fun toolkit" for the younger folks out there.
As a responsible parent it's nice to know that my 6 year-old daughter is not being exposed to any of the, shall we say "less savory" gaming content out there while still having hours of creative fun with Barbie Fashion Show.
Gameplay:
The gameplay (given the context described above) is surprisingly good and has all the ingredients required for folks in the 4 to perhaps even 9 or 10 age bracket to really be creative while having a lot of fun designing any kind of fashion, clothing or accessory in a virtual environment. The available tools and options are more than sufficient to provide many hours of non-repetitive creativity for those that have this kind of inclination.
On the latter subject matter, and before being accused of gender stereo-typing, my son has had ample opportunity to join in the creative process, but he prefers his Axis and Allies, Blitzkrieg and Age of Empires. I guess that he's just not that interested in the fashion world, which is not stereo-typical in my opinion, but his own personal preference.
Back to gameplay, it must be added that an interesting angle to the creative process is to get Barbie onto the catwalk where the player also has the option of printing out color prints of their fashion creations.
Graphics:
The graphics are surprisingly good even on fairly lower specification machines. My daughter usually plays this on a rather old laptop computer with a somewhat out-dated ATi RADEON graphics card and has never once had any complaints in the eye candy department. Once again, this probably has to be taken into context of the target audience.
Sound:
Pretty much what one would expect, and some of the music during a virtual fashion show seems to hit the right notes with the target user population.
Value:
Given the number of hours spent on this by now and its original purchase price, I give it a really good rating in this department.
Who Should Get It:
If you are a parent with a child in the age bracket discussed above and your child (boy or girl) shows some creative inclinations, which may or may not even have anything to do with fashion, then I would definitely reccommend this purchase.
Who Shouldn't Bother:
Anyone who believes that they will get a Sims-like version of a "virtual Barbie" to spend time with, since this is not the focus here.