Barbie (NES) review, by thedogisbarking
Barbie is a side-scrolling platform game for the NES. The story begins with Barbie reading a book about mermaids which starts sending her to sleep. She starts worrying about the 'hectic' day in front of her involving lunch at the Soda Shop, swimming at the beach, the obligatory party down with Ken and of course, the trip to the Mall for her party dress. Thats right, there is literally 'so much to do' and so she goes to sleep which is where and when the game begins. I assume her anxiety about the busy day ahead causes her to have nightmares about said day, which involves her in this dreamland of a game, dodging beach-balls and these angry shoes that try and hit you. Your life bar is a line of Z's and when it runs out Barbie appears in bed, a light switches on and you wake up. Your then offered to go back to sleep, thus continuing the game, or get up, which takes you back to the start.
Starting out on your 'glamorous quest' you'll notice the music isn't at all great and the sound effects are plain rubbish. It's not uncommon for platform characters to make a noise when they jump but with Barbie it's a horrible long drone. Barbie is also stupendously tall and takes up a big % of the screen. She moves really slowly and the jump motion is the most delayed / floaty excuse I've seen in any game. But low, you have a weapons arsenal to help you pass various obstacles, and carry three different items that you can throw at things. They look to me like bow-ties, diamonds and hearts!? Go figure! Each item has a symbol below their picture (which are situated at the bottom LHS of the screen), which I think try to denote what they do specifically, but i don't have the manual, so I don't know exactly. I just throw them, which is 'tedious as all hell!' because holding down the button longer makes the item travel further which is so awkward to control, and you have to be spot on. Maybe the game designers were adding in another cliche by making Barbie throw like a girl! Well, to add insult to injury, sometimes they just disappear into thin air before they land! You're often trying to throw your items at enemies (often the bosses') and onto various pet animals who will then proceed to disable certain enemies or help you overcome obstacles. For example, dropping down items you pick up from previously inaccessible places.
The first level sees you at the mall. It's a side scrolling platform setup which sees you progress to the RHS of the screen. More often than not your just dodging cutesy, level specific inanimate objects that fly at you by jumping and moving around platforms. Each of the three levels consist of a few stages, and there are also a number of bosses. One stage in the mall sees you almost entirely tying to dodge water fountains so whatever you do, don't let Barbie get wet! She has costume changes as she progress' through the stages which is pretty cool, and the second level sees her at the beach (or in the sea, as it happens) attired in full mermaid get up! I've not yet got to that level, but it looks a little bit different, maybe like Mario's underwater stage's. The final level is at the Soda Shop (which i assumed would be first, as it's what she thinks about first as she's going to sleep) and sees a return to the platform style. You end the game with a Jukebox themed stage, which i've read about and watched someone play, and involves you jumping on a lot of strategically placed records leading up into the clouds. I don't like the sound or look of it. Anyway you eventually reach these glass slippers in the sky, magically transport into this Ballroom where Ken is waiting and, congratulations, you tamed the Barbster.
I recently purchased Barbie for my NES. The opening gambit describing the game is as follows, 'A glamorous quest full of magic and adventure'. I didn't find it to be exactly that, but then I'm a 24 year old man! I don't think this particular game was intended to be played by the likes of me, let alone marketed at me and my particular demographic (even though it was designed and engineered by mostly, if not entirely, men), but I am interested in fashion and textile design!!, as well as feminism and all things female, not to mention video games. So, you know, whatever! I own a book entitled The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. Does Barbie get a mention? Hell yeah she does, there is a whole essay in it entitled 'Black Barbie and the deep play of difference', by Ann Ducille. Barbie (the doll) with it's various connotation's and meanings gets deconstructed at the end. The last sentence to this essay is as follows, 'So, if this is a cautionary tale, the final watchword for consumers and critics alike must be not only caveat emptor but also caveat lector: let the buyer and the reader beware'. Damn straight, and let this be the tag line for this particular game.
When you think the game was released in Dec 1991, and the Teen Talk Barbie doll in the summer of 1992, which sparked off a fair bit of controversy (parodied in the Simpsons episode, Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy) you can not help think the storyline is borderline sexist. However I can imagine little girls might not have been too bothered by it, and probably thought it was cool. The media is saturated with corny ideas about what people like. I think it's a bit harsh to judge too strongly a naive experiment in marketing video games to girls, its hardly surprising it ended up as it did. My main bone of contention is with the rubbish controls and tedious gameplay, which would have gotten girls annoyed and frustrated a hell of a lot more. 4 out of 10