PixlBit

Day # 2: Captain's Log...I'm lost somewhere in space. Stars all around, but I cannot figure as to what my location is. I'm becoming paranoid. It's quiet in space...too quiet. Almost eerie...almost...alien. A glow presents itself in my quarters. What is it? It beckons to me. This light....feels strange. I go towards the light. I open the door. Upon my desk...sits an evil...

Oh dear god. I would gladly throw myself into the vaccuums of space than review this game. Strangely enough Activision decided to take a break upon their evil deeds of releasing the latest annual installment of Call of Duty to make this game. And I would say this is inexcusable for any developer, but Activision has no soul. It wants me to despise this game and every other Barbie licensed product.

So, for as long as Alexandre Dumas has written the ever famed Three Musketeers there have been countless adaptations of his works. If he knew that the greatest evils on this planet in Mattel and Activision joined forces to piss all over his work...He not only would have rolled over in his grave...he would have rose from the dead to seek revenge.

In case you didn't know, The original Three Musketeers is set in the 17th century, it recounts the adventures of a young man named D'Artagnan after he leaves home to travel to Paris, to join the Musketeers of the Guard. D'Artagnan is not one of the musketeers of the title; those being his friends Athos, Porthos and Aramis, inseparable friends who live by the motto "all for one, one for all", a motto which is first put forth by d'Artagnan. So, now that we have that established...Let's find out how Barbie manages to crap all over it.

PLOT:

Corinne (played by Barbie) is a country girl from Gascony who dreams of being a musketeer in France. She goes to Paris with a letter for Monsieur Treville, the captain of the musketeers and an old friend of her father, hoping to be accepted as a musketeer.

But being a musketeer is not easy for Corinne. She is made fun of, and hired as a palace maid, not a musketeer. She meets her coworkers, three other girls who also dream of being musketeers too: Viveca, Aramina, and Renee. The next day when they return to work, a chandelier drops, and Viveca, Aramina, and Renee show off their musketeering skills. Corinne also finds a small ruby and above finds that the rope has been cut.

An old maid named Helen overhears their conversation and takes them through a secret passageway, where she leads them to the old musketeer training room, and agrees to train the four girls to be true musketeers. Soon the four girls are mastering their skills with Helen's help.

One day, while Corinne is cleaning the windows, she spots the prince hanging from his flying machine and runs to help him. The prince thanks Corinne and later falls in love with her. but later, she finds that the rope has been cut, just like the chandelier!

One night, Corinne, Viveca, Aramina, and Renee decide to celebrate their musketeering skills and walk into the dark, quiet streets. They encounter a man who pulls out a knife, and Corrine realises it matches the ruby she found next to the chandelier. They soon discover that the Regent's men were sneaking weapons into the masquerade ball to kill the prince! Finally, Corinne and her friends have a chance to save Prince Louis from his evil cousin with a very clever plan. They wear disguises and sneak into the ball . Prince Louis names them royal musketeers. In the end, Corinne and her three friends ride horses saying, "All for One, and One for All!" and they are very happy. OH AND THERE'S A TALKING CAT!

D'AWWW WOOK AT DA PREDDY KIDDY CAT! IT HAS A MASK! SILLY KIDDY THINKS IT'S PEOPLE!

So let's get to the game. Obviously this is not targeted at me. If for say you have a 5-8 year old daughter or niece. Go nuts By all means it's the perfect game for them. But A: I'm a guy in his mid 20's, and B: This game sucks.

So first and foremost Barbie and the Three Musketeers is a very standard platformer in every sense of the word. You can play as the main leader Corinne, Viveca, Aramina, or Renee. Each has a different ability. Viveca for instance can use a whip to swing along hooks grappling style, Renee fires arrows from her violin, Aramina dances around giving her the power to jump higher, and Corinne can grab onto ceilings.

The first level has you kill rats in a barn which in itself is far more complicated than it should be. Than there is a castle level where you rescue the prince...or rather follow him in his flying machine (a hot air balloon for the record), then you're at a ball (sorta), you rescue the prince, save the day and then throw this game in the garbage for being a complete waste of time. Seriously, you can beat this game in about 2 hours if you don't bother getting all the coins in the 15 levels this game has.

This would add a lot of replayability if there weren't 100 of these damn things in a level. And what do you get if you find them all? Why you get to buy dresses for in game play! (OOOH FASHION!) and cutscenes you can rewatch and make a fun drinking game from...or claw your eyes out.

Nothing says fancy like a ball gown!

The controls are fairly simple. You hold the wii remote sideways. Attack with 1, jump with 2, A is your special ability. Your talking cat is the - button, and you can switch characters with the B button which you will do often. The levels themselves are supposed to be different, but they are all very standard and similar, offering very little variety. Also this game is very forgiving. It's almost impossible to kill Corinne and her friends deliberately, but you can do it if you try, which of course me being a nice guy and all...I totally dropped her into a bottomless pit over and over cackling like a mad man.

So in closing, I guess I have to give this game a 1. It's playable, Nothing is really dreadful or broken, but it's just god awful in every aspect of a platformer game. And you can put this game into  the badly licensed shlock category So for that it gets a very special rating

Positive Messages: 3/5- It's all about girl power! Love it! Live it! Subtract points for making poor Corinne do those horrible maid chores The gall!

Positive Role Models: 2/5- Barbie has hardly been this, though I hardly found any of the characters to be proper role models anyways...maybe the talking cat.

Waste of Voice Talent: 5/5- Tim Curry...yes you read that right. Tim freaking Curry who I guess just will lend his voice to damn near anything is in this as the primary antagonist Phillipe. Alas Tim Curry I knew you...

Consumerism:   It isn't bad enough that Activision and Mattell are involved, but the act of scrounging around in every nook and cranny in search for coins to buy dresses is an act of consumerism so heinous it's through the roof/5

Well that's out of the way...I can't imagine what's next...Okay...just tell me...what fresh hell is it?

Can I Quit?