Bratz: Girlz Really Rock (DS) Review
Bratz is quite possibly the most succesful brand of young girls playtoys, right behind the all famous and all (unrealistically designed) Barbie dolls. Since they’re first conception, many companies have jumped on the bandwagon to produce some sort of merchandise. No doubt some of those who pay regular attention to the media would’ve seen television series, a full feature film and many different videogames. Bratz: Girls Really Rock is the latest videogame to be created from the high selling brand by THQ. Although it does have a few problems, and doesn’t particularly bode well with me on a personal level, I can see what it’s trying to do and who it’s trying to appeal to. And in that regard, it succeeds.
Bratz: Girls Really Rock takes place at a summer camp that all the girls from the Bratz collection are attending. While on camp however, they run into the boys and discover that the boys are trying to start their own band. Fortunately, the girls brought their instruments with them to camp, so after accesorising and buying some of the latest fashions, the girls practice in order to create a better band. Okay, I understand that if you are reading this you’re probably wondering why anyone would bother picking this game up, but the story is simple and it’s pretty easy to understand for the young ones. Being a male though, I don’t appreciate some of the ways the game perpetuates that girls are better than boys, but once again, we must remember the target audience.
I’ve had some close up experience with Bratz dolls (don’t ask) and I know enough to know that the graphics in the game looks very similar to their “real life” counterparts. All the main girls are there, Yasmin, Jade, Sacha and Chloe all return as playable characters, each with a unique personality (though none really have bearings on gameplay). The characters all look very nice, and the environments are pretty well rendered too. What’s really jarring though is the framerate, which slows to a painful level during outdoor scenes, but heads to a smooth 60fps during indoor scenes. This also brings up something that the developers probably shouldn’t have done – used low res textures in areas where I’ll definitely notice them, rather than outside. I’m sure that the game’s target audience, once again, probably wouldn’t find any problems with the graphics, and in that respect, the game does everything it should – portraying an accurate representation of the Bratz franchise.
Gameplay basically sees your character being tasked with difficult and complex objectives (Like “BUY THAT TOP!”) and basically training up your band. Movement is controlled by either the stylus or the direction pad, which is good as it caters to all little ones who may prefer one control method to another. Players can change their characters make up, hairstyle and clothes. What’s perhaps most encouraging is that players can also place tattoos on their characters face, which, naturally, got my dirty male mind going, but we’ll leave that discussion for somewhere else. The amount of customisation on offer is quite impressive, and should allow any girl to create her own unique Bratz doll to suit her tastes. What’s probably most disappointing about Bratz though is that gameplay is extremely monotonous – players simply have to move from A to B, listen to some dialogue or purchase something, and then return to where they came from. It simply wasn’t fun.
The audio is probably the most painful thing to come out of the whole package. There’s basically two pieces of music with a few different ones thrown in for good measure. The first is the ambience / wandering music that plays while the playable character is heading from position A to position B. The second, most annoying one, is the conversation music which is an irritating rock riff kind of tune that really, really gets old fast. Luckily, the DS DOES have a volume switch so I suggest ANYONE puts it to good use before they play Girls Really Rock.
Bratz will probably keep your daughter or sister entertained for a couple of hours, but I get the feeling that it’ll really lost it’s novelty sometime after the 3 hour mark. The gameplay simply lacks anything to compel you to move forward and suffers from some pretty cringeworthy dialogue too. Although the game is designed for younger children, I cannot see them finding any interest in doing the same task over and over with a thinly veiled coat of paint to make it seem different. Fortunately though, the game is already going for pretty cheap now so should make a good stocking stuffer come the Christmas season. Buy only for extreme (and young) fans of the Bratz brand.
