Detective Barbie

Copyright: KBkids.com

The new Barbie Adventure series takes Barbie out of the hair salon and dating circle, and into the world of high adventure. This new program is a lot of fun for girls who enjoy Barbie, but want a little more 'meat.'

Newly graduated detectives, Barbie and Becky are sent on their first case. The night before a big charity carnival, Ken disappears with all of the charity money. The girls are hot on the trail of this mystery and need your child's help. Is Ken guilty? If not, then where is he, and who has stolen the money? Barbie enlists the help of your child. Barbie will talk to your child by name. A database of 50,000 names is included, but the first child to test this program found her rather common name missing. If this happens, your child will need to pick an alternative name. In this case, she just picked an off the wall name and considered it her 'code name.'

Barbie's carnival is a decently rendered 3D world. It is not true 3D, but close enough for most younger kids. Making Barbie move may seem a bit awkward at first for younger children. Similar to some console games, you must point to the edge of your screen in order to make Barbie move in a given direction. You can not point and click on the screen to make her move, nor is she directly connected to your mouse movements as in some games. The result for testers was a lot of bumping into things at first.

As Barbie walks around the carnival (in an alluring manner of course) your child must look for clues. A magnifying glass can be picked up and moved around the screen at any point. Clues are not visible without this magnifying glass. Each time a clue is found, it is stored in the crime computer for later study. Barbie and Becky will give your child hints as the game progresses and clues are gathered. One great aspect of this program is the fact that the clues change every time your child plays. This makes the replay value of this program very high.

Bottom Line: A fun detective adventure where Barbie gets to use her brain power. Variable clues make the replay value here quite high.

Ratings: (based on KBkids.com's 4 star rating system)

Overall: 3 1/2

BrainGain: 2 1/2

FunFactor: 3 1/2

EasePlease: 3

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