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Barbie Magic Genie Bottle & CD-ROM

Barbie Magic Genie Bottle & CD-ROM

List Price: $19.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: System Requirements
Review: Before buying, please note that this game requires a joy stick connection or game port, which some or most new systems donot have. Newer computers only have a USB port which this game is not compatiable with.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Beautiful Game, but needs some tweaking
Review: Both my daughter and I love this game. She is 5 years old. I have to help her with it a bit though at times. One puzzle in particular was a little challenging. Most of the game is pretty much hide and seek. Items are hidden and you seek. Not that it is bad, my daughter enjoys it as the lands in which you explore are quite beautiful and magical. The best part of this game is of course the genie bottle. Just wave your hand in front of the pink gem and watch sparkles, hearts and stars float around or see items rise up in the air. If you take the top of the bottle off, Barbie genie appears in a cloudy pink swirl and she'll travel with you. You also have the option to fly on your own magic carpet while looking for items which is really neat! My daughter especially enjoys this. Barbie's voice is very clear and not annoying and she is very, very helpful to help play the game ... which is good because the interface is not that intuitive at first! I did want to mention that at first I thought our bottle was a dud and didn't work. It would light up no problem, but not interact with the game. There was no trouble shooting guide for this area in the manual. So check out the Readme.txt file in the game! It solved my problem and the bottle now works like it is supposed to. The bottle itself is very pretty. My daughter thinks it is magic. The dark pink gems on the bottle will light up and dance and twinkle. The bottle unfortunately is attached to a very long cord, which can't be removed. Which is a shame, because the bottle works without the computer.

The only flaws I see is navigation: instead of point and click where you want to go, you can only scroll up or down or left to right or forward or backward by moving your cursor. It would be much easier with a point and click. The other annoyance is there could be so much more to explore in each land. For example, the market place ... there are so many potentially cool places you could check out (as you would in most regular adventure games), but in Barbie Magic Genie, you can only really go into maybe 2 places.

I love playing this game with my daughter. The graphics are nice, the music is perfect for the arabian theme and game play is easy. Makes for enjoyable and unique Barbie game!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Don't bother!
Review: Don't bother with this one. It is too complicated for my 3 1/2 year old and too easy for my 8 year old. The whole game took my 8 year old about 2 hours to finish. There are no extra puzzles to make the software useable after the "adventure" is completed. It's now the day after Christmas and the "bottle" has been removed from the computer so they can play "genie" by themselves.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Don't bother!
Review: Don't bother with this one. It is too complicated for my 3 1/2 year old and too easy for my 8 year old. The whole game took my 8 year old about 2 hours to finish. There are no extra puzzles to make the software useable after the "adventure" is completed. It's now the day after Christmas and the "bottle" has been removed from the computer so they can play "genie" by themselves.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: System Requirements
Review: I am very pleased with this game that I purchased for my two girls, both of which are into computer games. My 5 and a half year old finds it a challenge but not hopeless. My 12 and a half year old helps out and is interested in the puzzles and arcade type games. The bottle flashes in very cool complex patterns behind the plastic jewels when it is rubbed or the top is taken off (which is thoughtfully attached by a strong string.) The bottle is attached by a very long, very pink cord, which makes it easy to use without feeling like you have to be on top of the computer. The game has nice background music, and the animated characters give interesting, complex clues about the other characters in the game, building an interesting story behind it all.

One note, the support site is really..., not what is printed in the book or shown on the screen. Also you will want to setup the bottle as a 2-axis, 2-button joystick for it to work right, the service site has detailed instructions. We had trouble with the bottle initially because "rubbing the bottle" (a major function of the game) didn't work. It turned out that I didn't have it set to the right kind of joystick (it was still set-up for my old joystick.) Follow the instructions on the support website and you will be fine!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very cool, magical game for girls with outstanding graphics!
Review: I am very pleased with this game that I purchased for my two girls, both of which are into computer games. My 5 and a half year old finds it a challenge but not hopeless. My 12 and a half year old helps out and is interested in the puzzles and arcade type games. The bottle flashes in very cool complex patterns behind the plastic jewels when it is rubbed or the top is taken off (which is thoughtfully attached by a strong string.) The bottle is attached by a very long, very pink cord, which makes it easy to use without feeling like you have to be on top of the computer. The game has nice background music, and the animated characters give interesting, complex clues about the other characters in the game, building an interesting story behind it all.

One note, the support site is really..., not what is printed in the book or shown on the screen. Also you will want to setup the bottle as a 2-axis, 2-button joystick for it to work right, the service site has detailed instructions. We had trouble with the bottle initially because "rubbing the bottle" (a major function of the game) didn't work. It turned out that I didn't have it set to the right kind of joystick (it was still set-up for my old joystick.) Follow the instructions on the support website and you will be fine!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It had my daughter sucked in for hours
Review: My daughter loved the game and shes still playing, it is so much fun that I can barely get her off the computer so I can work. She plays with the genie bottle all the time too.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: OK
Review: My two daughters would give this a 5 star rating, I myself would give it about a 3, so we decided to give it a four.

As far as price, I paid $40 and after playing it was disappointed because I paid so much for it. If I could go back I would not pay more than $25 for it.

It is fun and can be a challenging game to play because they gems you must find are not always in the same place if you restart the game, so it will always be different when your kids want to play again. You can always save your game which comes in handy since there are about 5 levels you must travel through and it does get lenghtly.

The only problem that we have had so far is that when you touch the magic bottle heavy items on the screen are to pick up, but for some reason they won't so we end up pressing F5 for it to work.

As far as kids taking the bottle to play, I would not recommend that, since the parrell port stays attached to the bottle and cannot be removed.

Sound and anmimation are good.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: [Stinks] on ice!
Review: this is the worst peice of trash i have seen in years


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