Secret Agent Barbie

In order to bring the thieves to justice, Barbie has a full team of helpers and a complement of gadgetry. To get past a guard who won't let her through a door, she uses her compact to blow foundation in his face. To investigate areas too tiny for her to access, she has a robotic spy puppy. Her Pinkvision goggles can seek out the combinations to otherwise secured doors. Finally, Barbie has two gymnastic skills: dive rolls that carry her past guarded areas, and jumps to get over obstacles and laser alarms.

By virtue of its emphasis on gizmos, this game makes itself a distant relative of pop-culture heroes like James Bond or the Mission Impossible teams. However, Secret Agent Barbie lacks the defining characteristic of this milieu: violence. Barbie has a stealth mode for sneaking around game scenery, an adventure mode for calmer moments, and an action mode for running and jumping. (Each of these modes comes with its own costume options.) What Barbie doesn't have is a fight mode. Whether this is a good or bad thing may be entirely a matter of parental and player opinion.

Regardless of your position on mayhem, Secret Agent Barbie has a few definite weaknesses. Gameplay is really just a process of moving from one animated sequence to the next--and the quality of these sometimes lengthy movies is only so-so. The game is highly inflexible, pursuing a straight path to the stolen fashions. As a result, its replay factor is almost zero. As for the mystery-solving element, players don't find clues so much as stumble over them.

That said, Secret Agent Barbie does move the widely beloved doll into a distinctly macho career path, allowing girls to tag along with their heroine on a globetrotting adventure. (Ages 6 and older) --Alyx Dellamonica

Amazon.com Product Description
Secret Agent Barbie lets kids join Barbie and her friends in an exciting new adventure as she travels the world as a secret agent. Her mission is to investigate and stop the creation of an invisibility suit. Kids travel tofive locations--Paris, New York, Egypt, Tokyo, and Rio--and complete amission in each, bringing them closer to breaking the case. Secret agentshave access to special powers like running, jumping, tumbling, and blendinginto the background. There are special gadgets like pink-vision glasses anda remote-control puppy, and a selection of cool secret agent outfits.