The beautiful and darling blonde Barbie is back with another adventure in Barbie: Jet, Set and Style. Developed by THQ, players take on the role of Barbie’s fashionista partner who travels around the world with her in their quest to right all fashion wrongs among Barbie’s friends and clients.
In the Wii Barbie: Jet, Set and Style game, players accompany Barbie as she tours the globe in her pink, private jet. The wonderful places gamers will get to visit include Paris, London, Rio de Janeiro, Milan, and Los Angeles. As players touch down on these exotic virtual locations, various clients and friends of Barbie will approach her and require her aid in fixing fashion emergencies. These situations include selecting the right dress for a high school prom, correcting a botched haircut, and even preparing a movie star for her big film premiere. Gamers will get to call all the fashion stops as Barbie’s top fashionista. At the end of the makeover, Barbie gives her opinion about the player’s fashion choices and awards points accordingly. This all culminates in a final challenge wherein gamers style Barbie herself for her big fashion romp with Ken.
Controls and gameplay are simple enough to understand. Depending on the specific fashion problem, players will be given a vast collection of dresses and clothes to choose from. They can also apply makeup, lipstick, and eyeliner on their client’s faces, can select the appropriate nail polish, can design, cut, style, and dye hair, and many more. Whatever choices the players make will automatically be displayed in a preview which showcases the finished look, so they can mix and match colors and styles while looking at the results to see if they fit.
Various add-ons are littered throughout the game to prevent monotony. There is a matching-pictures minigame that unlocks new styles and features, a constant journal update by Barbie which chronicles both your exploits and provides momentum for the campaign, as well as cutscenes and voiceovers. The game’s visuals are average at best, but the audio soundtrack is upbeat and peppy, perfectly matching the game’s chic and bubbly nature. Additionally, Barbie’s voice actor delivers her lines with much enthusiasm, adding heart to the game. Phrases such as “Absolutely fab!”, “I had a blast!”, and “Another day, another fashion crisis averted!” are littered throughout the game. While they may sound a bit too campy for some, the script suits the context of the game extremely well and reflects the current lingo of young, fashion-minded female gamers.
Barbie: Jet, Set and Style Wii game is Barbie as we know her. The game is fun and brings out the dreams of glamour and glitz in its players.
This Barbie Wii game is targeted towards a very specific niche of players, mainly preadolescent female gamers. Anyone outside this demographic may only scratch their head or roll their eyes when Barbie tells them worriedly that her friend’s stylist dyed her hair the wrong color (and something must be done about it!). However, those within the intended niche can easily relate to this game.
Another problem is the loading times, which frequently rears its ugly head in between fashion scenes. The game’s action significantly dies down due to the constant loading screen popping up and may cause some frustration and annoyance.
Finally, gameplay is often repetitive, leading to low replay value once players complete the main campaign. Although players have multiple options and many fashion problems to solve, most of them follow a common thread of game mechanics, which may take away most of the challenge.
Barbie: Jet, Set and Style can be played in the Wii console. It is a single-player game.
Young girls keenly interested in fashion and styling will appreciate Barbie: Jet, Set and Style. Barbie’s bubbly personality and the upbeat soundtrack will let them paint and brush away with abandon, allowing their inner stylist to express itself. However, the repetitious game mechanics and frequent loading times take away from the game’s overall value and replayability. Also, most male gamers and those older than twelve will have little patience with this game. Overall, Barbie: Jet, Set and Style is a good purchase if you have a preadolescent, fashion-minded youth around the house.