Generation Girl - Gotta Groove
The pictures on the box don't even give you the slightest sense of how much fun the
dancing is. The basic idea of this game is to create a dance performance for two of
Barbie's generation girls. To do this you start out by assembling the dance sequence and
then go on to designing costumes, choosing music, sets and lighting . Creating the dance
sequence is the best. You pick from a deck of dance cards different routines and arrange
them in the order you want them performed. Each girl has her own distinctive set of
moves and you can even mix and match them.
While you are working on one dancer's routine, the other marks time and vamps. You
click on the dancer to activate her and each click advances her to the next routine. There
are many possibilities - you can alternate dancers, have each dancer do the other's
routine or have them both perform together. There is a challenge to play - (not as easy as it
seems) for more cards or more special effects. After you are satisfied with how the dance
looks it's time to add the finishing touches - costumes, sets and lights and finally set the
performance in motion.
The dance movement has been produced by motion capture and is very realistic. Mocap is done by having luminous markers placed on a dancer, capturing the dance on video and
then matching it to the computer image of a character such as Barbie. Generally these
sequences - because of the time and cost involved - are kept short, but in this case there are
lots of interesting and varied sequences. The idea of working with two girls is a good one
since they can dance together. The Generation Girl line is targeted for the slightly older
Barbie crowd. The activities are more sophisticated and thankfully, Barbie's voice is
pitched at least an octave lower. This activity will keep girls "captured" at the computer
for a long time. And another thing - this is a two person game. One girl controls a dancer with the mouse and the other uses the keyboard. Nice of Mattel to make it so. It's the best Barbie product since the camera. Sorry, it's not on the MAC.
Reviewed by Genevieve 1/00
Ages: 5 and up