By Emily Chan
What is the definition of a woman? According to sites like girlgames.com, being a girl is dressing up, getting makeovers, decorating your room and dating. Though these perceived “key definitions” of being a woman may be pretty far from reality, they’ve created an abundance of “girl games” for Baron Banner to try out. Each game is to be ranked based on the storyline/plot, the number of customization options, the uniqueness of the game concept, the soundtrack and the functionality/graphics of the game.
Let’s see which of these games is the fairest of them all!
5. Kissing Games
The “Kissing” section on GirlGames.com is truly a sight to see. Since there is a whole section on them, I planned to try out a few and compare them, only to find out that all of them are essentially the same. Furthermore, it seems like Capy.com has a monopoly over this specific type of game. The only difference between each game is the setting and the characters.
Other than that, all of them follow the same premise where there’s one guy and three levels of girls. For each level, there’s a number of hearts at the bottom of the screen you must fill in order to get to the next level. Essentially, you hold down your mouse to make them kiss to fill each heart while the teacher/principal isn’t looking. If the principal or teacher catches them, you have to restart.
I won’t lie, the game is pretty fun when you’re doing well. However, the amount of times I had to restart and watch the unskippable ads before each game sent me off the deep end. I played one round, losing my patience and dignity in the process. Furthermore, it is a little weird since the guy doesn’t change, making it so that he’s just out here kissing a bunch of other girls in the same setting.
4. High School Break-Up Drama
Capy.com has made a comeback with this Disney-themed post-break-up game. It starts off with Cinderella as the main character as she cries in the locker room to Elsa and Anna after she sees Prince Charming kissing Ariel in the hallway. Then, Anna and Elsa suggest that Cinderella should get a makeover and get revenge on Prince Charming before the Prom dance. During the makeover process, you help wipe away Cinderella’s tears, do her skincare routine and click on different makeup bags to choose a makeup look for her.
Afterward, the three of them trash Prince Charming’s locker, paint it pink and leave it up to you which phrase to spray paint onto it. I picked a personal favorite of mine, “two-timer” to seal the locker off. Next, you pick one of four “gifts” to put in Ariel’s room to show her what a mistake it was to steal Prince Charming. I settled for the break-up survival kit. Finally, you pick out an outfit and accessories for Cinderella to go to prom where she tells Eric that he doesn’t deserve her.
3. BFFs vs Bullies: Fashion Rivalry
The game begins with the three bullies telling the “BFFs” they don’t have a chance at winning their school’s fashion competition. In response, the BFFs decide that they are going to make the bullies “pay” for what they said by winning the fashion competition. You are then transported to a screen with 3 girls to do makeovers on to prepare them for the fashion contest.
To do their makeup, you just click on each tool to reveal the options. There are six eyeshadow/eyeliner choices, six lip colors, four blushes, six lash choices, three brow shapes, two brow colors and two contact lens colors. You must choose one option for each of the categories to progress through the makeover process. That said, I wish it wasn’t required for you to choose the brow shape since I liked the shape of her natural brows.
For the first girl, I chose gold eyeshadow to match her yellow contacts, a red lip, lighter, brushed brows and glowy highlighter. Next, you dress her up for the contest with the variety of clothing and accessory options provided to you. The final look for the first girl consisted of a black heart-lined tube top, sparkly, red, wide-leg pants with a red hat to match, a red gummy bear necklace and gold hoops. Plus, I had her hold a pair of headphones and a spiky black bag to fulfill the eight-item requirement.
You then repeat this process for the other two. After you do makeovers on all of them, each of these looks is rated in stars in comparison to one of the bullies. I won with a landslide of an 80-point difference between the bullies. But, while it’s supposed to be very clear who’s going to win the competition, they didn’t have to do the bullies so dirty with the outfits they were put in. I truly have never seen such heinous outfits and makeup combinations in my entire life, but I digress.
I liked the overall concept of the game, the layout and the soundtrack, however, I couldn’t help but feel that the fashion options just didn’t match the fashion competition theme. All of the clothing pieces were a lot more casual and streetwear-inspired than I originally thought. For example, holding a Stanley Cup as an accessory for a fashion competition is just a bit random. Not only that, the skippable ads before each section of the game proved to be minor annoyances as they prevented you from progressing in the makeover process and often redirected me to random home developing or attorney websites.
2. Totally Spies: Mall Brawl
Jerry Lewis, the organization leader in the show Totally Spies alerts us that mall prices have gone out of control because of the villain, Tim Scam. Tim Scam hopes to drive more shoppers to his online store to become the richest man on the planet, and it’s your job to hit all of the malls to stop him.
The main objectives of this side-scrolling game are to find the anti-virus card for each mall, use that card to clean up all of the infected cash registers and destroy all enemy robots. You can also collect cash from the pink ATMs for extra points, drink lattes to regain energy and chew bubble gum to gain temporary invincibility along the way.
I had a blast picking up my magical headband boomerang and blowdryer laser and kicking the evil wig-wearing robots until I reached a bit of a roadblock. The game insinuates that there are multiple levels of malls to clean up; however, I cannot confirm this as I never got past the first level. Why was I never freed from the shackles of the Beverly Hills Mall? I couldn’t figure out how to get up the escalator to the second story. The same story that held the shiny anti-virus card I so desperately needed to pass.
I went on to restart the game about three times to try to figure it out and trust me, I tried everything. I pressed the button to redirect the escalator to bring me to the top, I tried to jump on the fountain to see if the water would propel me to the second story and I tried to fling my weapons at the escalator, all to no avail.
The game was super fun to start. I loved how the graphics of the mall pertained to the issue, with shirts being “only” $50,000, it was fun kicking the strange robots and the soundtrack was great. Furthermore, the game ran pretty well for the most part and I only got one ad at the beginning of the game. That said, although I found it refreshing to have a fighting game for girls, the fun I got out of the first story cannot compare to the frustration trying and failing to go up the escalator would bring me.
1. Party Crashers: Ex-Boyfriend edition
The intro to this game was so fun since it starts with a sequence of texts between Babs, the main girl and her friend having a conversation about how her ex-boyfriend just got a new girlfriend and is hosting a party that night. After they decide to get revenge on him, the game shifts to a screen with four girls to give makeovers on.
The makeover process is essentially the same as BFFs vs. Bullies except for different makeup and clothing options. Surprisingly, I liked the clothing options for this game so much more than its high school fashion-show counterpart. Not only were there more clothing and accessories to choose from, but they also fit the night-out theme better and looked cuter in general.
After you dress up each character, together they go and meet Bab’s ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. Once they arrive, her ex-boyfriend tells her how good she looks and that he made a mistake by breaking up with her. Of course, Bab declines, telling him that he “had his chance” and that it’s over between them. Afterward, Bab and her group leave the party and go home. The game concludes with all of them in presumably Bab’s room where you can switch the background to download pictures of your makeover masterpieces.
I honestly had a blast dressing up the characters and playing around with different looks. Though the overall concept was pretty basic, I enjoyed how short and sweet this game was. It was easy to mix and match pieces to create unique outfits and allowed your creativity to show. Moreover, the game ran smoothly, the graphics were really pretty and the soundtrack was pretty fun as well.
My only gripes on this game is an ad before each section of the game and the accessory quota you must meet for each girl to progress. However, since the ads were skippable and the quota seemed to push my creativity I won’t hold it against it. Overall, I’d give this one a go!
