Staceys1's Full Review: Barbie Groovy Games for Game Boy Advance (GBA)
A few months ago, we drove from New York to Florida, and in planning for that trip, we made sure that our children, ages 4 and 5, had a number of activities to keep them occupied while in the car. My son loved his Gameboy, but generally only played the sports games, which did not hold my daughter's attention. When I saw Groovy Games with Barbie's logo and picture on the front of the box, I thought that this would be perfect for her.
You can play in one or two player mode, and you can choose which character you would like to be: Barbie, Becky, Christie, Kayla, Ken, Lea or Teresa. Even when playing a one player game against the computer, you choose which character the computer will be.
After choosing the characters, you then choose your game, along with the difficulty level of easy, medium, or hard. There are instructions available to read by pressing a button, but as my four year old cannot read yet, this does not get used much.
This Gameboy Advance version of Groovy Games contains nine games:
~ DJ Booth: a matching game where you take turns flipping over CDs and their cases to try to find a match.
~ Tic-Tac-Toe: the same game as alway, but this time instead of X or O, you play with butterflies and flowers.
~ Four Scoops: similar to "Connect Four" in that you try to place four of your color scoops of ice cream in a row.
~ Bubble Machine: the bubble machine at the bottom of the screen shows you what color bubble (pink, blue or green) is ready to be launched. By using the arrows on the control pad you can move it left or right to aim it at the same color bubbles floating down from the top of the screen. If your bubble touches two or more bubbles, they pop, and the object is to pop as many bubbles as you can.
~ Checkers: the basic game is the same, including getting "kinged", but here you can choose to be hearts, flowers, bows or stars, rather than just boring red or black pieces.
~ Daisy Derby: a spelling game where you must guess the missing letters in a word. Each time you get a letter correct your horse moves forward, and each time you guess one wrong, your opponents horse moves forward. The first person to move her horse across the screen to the finish line wins. There are three, four, and five letter words in this game, and some can be tricky, such as the puzzle of "T - P" which could be tip, tap or top. The answer the computer wanted was "top", and the others were incorrect guesses. My five year old does try to play this game, but when there are puzzles such as this, he gets frustrated easily.
~ Groove and Move- similar to "Simon" where a dancer is dancing and arrows light up which correspond to the up, down, right and left buttons on the keypad. As they light up, you must follow along and press the corresponding button.
~ Conga Line- using the keypad, move your dancing character around the board to try and get as many more dancers as you can to join your Conga Line. One at a time they appear, and they are stationery, so that all you have to do is not bump into a wall, or your own Conga line.
~ Gems and Jewels: the goal is to line up four gems or jewels, either by size, shape, type (solid or hollow) or color (pink or gold). Each player chooses a gem or jewel for her opponent to place on the board from the 16 pieces on the right hand side of the screen. This game is a little advanced for my four year old, though she does put it on just to see the sparkly gems and jewels.
Even though as parents we have seen many, if not all, of these games before in some version, each of these is definitely rooted in Barbie-world. While at the menu screens, it appears that you are in Barbie's pink car and after you choose, you "drive" to the location of the game. Every game has a different setting, such as the "DJ Booth" located at a record store, checkers on the beach, "Four Scoops" at the ice cream parlor and "Conga Line" at a dance studio.
There is an abundance of pink and purple in the graphics, along with butterflies, flowers and hearts. All of this makes my daughter love it that much more, but makes my five year old son a little uneasy about playing the games. Although he does enjoy playing them, he does "wish it didn't have to be Barbie!"
Barbie's Groovy Games has an "Everyone" rating and it would be appropriate for anybody. I cannot find a recommended age on this product, but any child old enough to use a Gameboy could play at least some of the games on this cartridge...if they can get it away from mom or dad! Of course, as my son points out, most boys would not be thrilled if their friends knew they were playing a Barbie game, but the games themselves are fun, thinking games have have brought much enjoyment to our family. We have definitely gotten our $20 worth from this game!
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