Bratz Girlz Really Rock (Wii) Review
Continuing the now apparent legacy of mediocre Bratz games, Girlz Really Rock is the third game on the Wii to star the 4 pre-teens famous from the line of kids dolls and merchandise. Despite poor critical reception of the previous titles, this next outing has no improvements for the series and instead simply rides on the already done-to-death music and characters similar to the popular film High School Musical.
The story begins as the girls miss a bus for the start of their summer vacation at camp. After finding an alternate route in sky diving from a plane into their destination the story may as well end there. While there is some shallow motivation of wanting to play a concert for a competition to be in a movie, the dialogue is usually no more than attempts to use euphemisms like Excellent! and Awesome! as much as possible and the events generally make no sense.
The style of the Bratz series and the characters within appeal to a wide audience around the world obviously primarily made up of younger girls and theres plenty to cater to their tastes in Girlz Really Rock. The songs are vibrant and hip, everyones got a rockin attitude and theres a lot of time to spend in making outfits and playing with makeup. Even though the target audience of kids and Bratz lovers is kept as the focus of Girlz Really Rock, no audience should accept such shallow game design with repetitively dull tasks, terrible controls and horrible graphics.
With winning the camp musical contest as the loose focus for the adventure the girls must explore Camp Starshine and learn a bit about music and fashion before putting on the big show. The camp is an open world area thats explored in third person and is the best example of the worst controls used in the game. Its a shame too, considering theyre the most often used, with the Wii Remote sensor aiming the travel direction whilst awkwardly jerking the camera at every slightest move.
Once the camp is familiarised and explored (with no thanks to the only maps being bolted to the ground) the available activities are presented with missions for the girls to go around practicing music, dressing up in new outfits and doing odd unessential tasks like finding lost pets and photographing instruments. Aside from wandering the camp and playing dress up, the musical games are the main focuses of the adventure with the camps mini golf course being an extensive yet broken side game featuring a variety of themed courses to play through.
Learning and performing songs throughout the game becomes very repetitive with a rhythm based game involving only the A and B buttons mixed with some terrible timing against some decent yet repeated musical pieces. The medium and harder difficulties demand a shake of the Wii Remote on every single note which becomes painfully tiresome and a cheap attempt at expanding on such shallow gameplay.
All of the mini games and the multiplayer modes can be accessed from the start at the main screen but with only 3 variants for two players the multiplayer is extremely short lived and continually exemplifies the poor controls repeated throughout the game whether in a game of Bratz Music!, X-treme Skydiving or Mini-Golf Madness.
The mini golf course while hosting a nice selection of themed courses is a shocking attempt at implementing the Wiis controls to a real life action and is usually impossible to accurately measure the power of a swing or predict where a shot will end up. It seems skill in mini golf comes second to dressing up for the occasion, a skill mastered by the girls and the player thanks to wardrobes being available at most any location and for any event.
The abundance of wardrobes and make up stations around the camp ensure a new look is always at hand allowing the player to alter either of the girls outfits or makeup. Outfit creation features options of skirts or trousers, a top to wear and shoes to match. For each piece then is the ability to alter its colour, fabric style and even stamp a picture on for that truly over-the-top effect. Make up options consist of eye shadow, blush and a variety of lip stick colours but also seriously emphasise the lack of detail in the character models for the Bratz girls with a horrid close-up. For those too lazy to mess with make up or looking to spice things up quickly theres a Quick Makeover option to instantly apply a random selection of colours to the girls.
Dressing up is definitely the key focus of Bratz Girlz Really Rock, with the dull musical games, broken mini-golf and dreadful story all coming second to finding something to walk around looking attractive in. The term attractive is used only in relation to the other characters in Girlz Really Rock as it really is one of the worst looking games on the Wii. The music is likely to suit any fans of the Bratz series and really its all that works for the girls latest outing on the Wii. Very young girls or fans of the Bratz dolls may find some entertainment in the boisterous attitude and cheerful songs in the game but anyone looking for the slightest bit of fun in gameplay will be sorely disappointed and lost in a tangle of terrible controls and repetitive mini-games.
