Barbie Beauty Boutique (PC Games, 2003)

My daughters have hours of fun with this. It is discontinued, but if you can find one, make sure it is not an Australian version. At least the Australian version didn't work completely well on my USA computer running Windows XP. The US version I also have works perfectly. The software is so much fun I got the second disc so 2 can play at the same time but on different computers. This is when the Australian version didn't work that well.

I got this for my daughter who has seen pretty much all the Barbie computer-animated movies.

PROS:
-She LOVES playing with this game and has for the 3 months or so we've had it.
-Very easy to pick up how to play the game
-non-competitive/score-oriented game --- it's all about being as creative as she wants to be
-can rotate Barbie in the various chairs to see all sides of her head/face
-get a short animation/slide show at the end of making up Barbie
-can print off a final pose of the finished Barbie in front of a selected setting

CONS:
-slow movement of objects from menu to Barbie's face
-old school graphics/modeling is somewhat slab-like rather than smoothed and contoured
-placement of objects (jewelry),coloring, and makeup are limited to somewhat small specific areas
-menus are pretty limited in options [I'm thinking my daughter will be done playing with this in a couple more months simply because she'll have seen each of the options and many of the combinations she likes.]
-prints of finished Barbie and setting use a LOT of color ink! I haven't been able to figure out if there is a way to force the game's printer driver to print to file or pdf instead of hardcopy. Can't even reduce the size (fullpage) of the image printed either. I've had to simply tell my girl to print only once each day despite her making roughly 7-10 Barbie's in an hour to two period.

Overall, I'm happy I got the game and I'd say my daughter is very happy with it but the game seems to be something that was created 15 or 20 years ago what with the limited flexibility (printing and item placement) and image quality.

My six year old daughter loves to play this game. It is very detailed and provides lots of different scenerios and options. It is a great game for Barbie lovers.

I bought this game for my daughters a long time ago. Unfortunately, they broke it and I have been scrambling to find it ever since. I am not a barbie fan, but this game is WONDERFUL !! They spend hours on the computer dressing, primping and decorating barbie. ESPECIALLY GREAT TO BE ABLE TO CHOOSE A BLACK BARBIE (something Barbie doesn't have in ANY of her movies. Shame on Barbie.)