Barbie has world's biggest lungs!

User Rating: 2 | Barbie: Ocean Discovery GBC
I got Barbie: Ocean Adventure in a set of different games and like a good gamer, you test each one, even if you don't like it. Let's say I'm not the target audience for this one. I'm a 25 year old male and I think the nice people at Mattel want to reach a younger, less hairy audience. If you are over 10 and playing this other than the purpose of writing a review for it, please go out in the real world and buy a budget game, then play that.
Is that an omen that this game is bad? Well, frankly...yes. It is quite horrible.

First, let me say, I played this in the mind of a prepubescent girl. Takes some time, but I did it. And speaking of time, I'll point to the biggest, most prominent flaw in this game: I finished it in 30 minutes and that was the first time, exploring the bits of the game!! Who in there right mind brings out a game that is completed in minutes!!? Chances are, if you read this entire review, you will have wasted more time reading, than playing Barbie: Ocean Adventure.

After a brief explanation of what you should do, Barbie plunges into the deep, looking for shells with special items in them. She thusly wants to retrieve an ancient treasure map, which should lead her to a giant treasure, lost underwater. I don't know how she does that, because during the entire game, she doesn't need to breath at all. Barbie has world's biggest lungs!

So, what can you do underwater, with immortal Barbie? Well, you sure can swim, because that and the shells she needs to find will be the ONLY thing you will be doing! Nothing interacts in a relevant way to Barbie. You can push a button to make fish swim away or in a weird circle, but that will not do anything, except waste more time. And you want to continue this large epic, right?
You can pause the game to get an overview of what you've done, have some sort of map where Barbie is located and later on you can replay mini-games if you want. Wait! Did you say mini-games? I thought you could only swim? Well, yes, but when she finds a special shell, Barbie needs to solve a puzzle to get the item, nothing comes for free. Except, obviously air, because she banked a life supply before heading under.

These mini-games vary from a puzzle that needs to be put back together to a small maze, a music note game and catching bubbles. You can also replay the mini-games to unlock extra charms, but again, they don't do anything and you really don't want to waste your time with that. Get your accessories in the damn store, Barbie, you cheap tramp.
After 3 levels with 3 shells, Barbie finds the treasure and all is well.

Another stupid aspect is that after you've finished, you can read about the history of the treasure. Why after? Why would you want to know 7 pages of history AFTER you've gotten the treasure? I'll tell you why. You wouldn't. Just like you wouldn't want to play this game. Buy your daughter a real Barbie doll with the money and she can have countless underwater adventures with her imagination. Those will probably last longer than 30 minutes.