Customer Reviews

Barbie: Island Princess

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This game is a Christmas present for our bright 6.5-year old, and after about an hour of play, she's pronounced it good, but not as much fun as the other Barbie games (she has Barbie of Swan Lake, Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus and Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses) which were all solid 5 stars.

Continuing the progression of more advanced/smooth-running graphics in each new game, this one is visually very appealing, but the 'mini game' format is more like a collection of arcade games than a story. In Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus, for example, Barbie went through the levels of the game to defeat the evil Wenlock (?sp). Here, the games are completely separate with no ultimate goal. From a parent's point of view, that's bad.

Also, the games themselves don't seem the least educational...just games with no skill building, although to be fair, we have seen only about half the games so far.

Last, many games do require a bit of reading, so it's not suitable for children who are pre-readers. My 1st grader can read about 80% of the instructions, and I would say most of the UI (User Interface) designers don't have children, as the words in the documentation could have been simplified. Despite both of us reading the directions on the 'buncha bananas' game, it didn't seem to work, as Barbie would not move forward more than a few steps.

In summary, while my daughter is enjoying the game, I don't expect it to hold her attention for repeat play as the other Barbie games have. I suspect this game was rushed out for Christmas delivery, and would have benefitted from a little more thoughtful design that would have tied the plot lines of the book and movie into the game.

At $1.99. who could lose on this game? My daughter loves it and has played with it since she received it for Christmas. She loves the games. They are age appropriate and not too hard to play. It is a winner.

I bought this for my daughter who is 6 years old. The graphics are quite nice and better than her other barbie games, though those are older. This is the second newest barbie game on the pc i believe, newest is the barbie musketeer one. She has enjoyed it but hasnt spent much time on it since its not a story and pretty easy.
As other reviewers have said this game is just a collection of minigames. You need to collect "roses", prizes for winning the mini games. Once you have a certain amount on the island you advance to the next island. The most roses you can get each mini game is 3. The amount you get are based on the points your score. You win dresses and other collectibles if you get 3 roses and you can outfit the main character in a "dressing room" mode. But the collection is quite small unfortunately. There are also some video scenes between switching islands. But i believe they are all taken from the movie so nothing new.
The game is short like i said maybe it took my 6 year old, 10 hours to finish her first time even without knowing the instructions and just playing until she got it. The games are easy and pretty simple. Its looks nice but just doesnt give the same amount of hours played and enjoyability as previous story barbie games( 12 dancing princesses, princess and pauper, etc...)
The designers of these games should focus on making a story type game like those instead of improving graphics. I am pretty sure my daughter doesnt care much if her game looks "HD" as i believe she has had more fun in older barbie games with worse graphics. If my daughter wanted to play minigames there are plenty of those on the barbie internet sites.

This game gave us an error screen in one of the mini-games on the Prince's boat, and we can progress no further. Even if we overlook this, my daughter was bored with the mini-games (the ones we could play) and stopped playing it. My advice: Stay away from this title!

I bought this for my 5 year old daughter. As another reviewer wrote. At least for the PC version, you can never get past the boat stage (I believe that's the second of 5 or so stages).
It crashes and I am forced to task manager out. And no, it's not a hardware, user error, related issue. I have built many computers in my day. DirectX was updated and installed. Necessary hardware, memory, video card and drivers are all up to date.

This is most likely just bad programming, and poor follow up. There are no updates or patches as of yet on Activision's website- a horrible website I may add. Why do some web designers feel the need to use flash everywhere. Less running clocks, more quick loading please. Once again, not me, I use superfast FIOS.

This is your basic Barbie theme game. It is pretty simple so younger children 6+ should enjoy it. It seems to be somewhat boring for older children.