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PS2 Review - Mary Kate and Ashley Olson: Sweet 16 - Licensed to Drive
To
start off the wiffleball year I was asked to review a game that left
me feeling empty on multiple levels. For starters, the game was apparently
meant for girls under the age of ten. Apparently Joey Creighton didn't
notice the motto "Real games for real girls" on the cover
before he rented it. Or maybe he did, who knows.
(Author's
note: Thanks for renting the game, Joe. The embarrassment alone is worth
some kudos)
So
the game starts off with a soundtrack that you find yourself singing
along with after five minutes. It is somewhere along the lines of the
squaredancing songs in high school PE. You don't really want them in
your head, but there they are. Joey was kind enough to sit down and
play a little to enhance the multi-player format.
We
went through the arcade and single events first. These formats were
great on two levels:
One,
it's a race. Therefore it's a competition. It may be pathetic to get
competitive over a game like this, but not any more pathetic than stringing
out your baseball dreams by playing wiffleball into your mid-twenties,
right?
And
two, the Olson twins. Let's not kid ourselves, the Olson twins are hot,
and the animated versions do NOT disappoint. They are probably hotter
than the real thing (if that's possible). So there I was, cursing the
other girls in the sea-doo/cayak/four-wheeler race and celebrating when
I had won. I mean, it wasn't like I was overly proud of myself. After
all, for most of the races all you needed to do was use the thumbstick
to go left to right. But don't let that make you think I wasn't talking
all kinds of trash to Joey, who was being utterly destroyed by me. There
was even an event that was the game we all played as kids, "tag."
In an unprecedented move for video games, they actually made "tag"
part of the game. They're probably thinking that kids are so lazy that
they would rather play video game tag than real tag. Suffice to say,
this was my favorite game.
After
Joey and I had gone through all of the events, it was on to the main
event.
Let
me just say this, it was not a main event. I was expecting...well, I
don't really know what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I got. What
I got was a giant board game with unintelligible rules and no discernable
point. It says you are supposed to pick up friends for a party and make
some money to shop along the way. In forty-five minutes, the grand total
of "friends" to get picked up was one...and it was by the
computer. It was unreal. Turn afteer turn of nothing. Once in awhile
you'd land on a square that let you play a mini-game (or something).
One of the mini games was classsic. Well, at least it might be if either
Joey or myself could figure out what the rules were. Apparently you're
sitting in a parked car as a driver or a passenger. The broad idea of
the game has something to do with the CD player in the car. I took Joey
on in a head to head duel to the death. However, after what was literally
three seconds, the game was over and neither of us were declared the
"winner." Neither of us got any points. It was about that
time I decided that maybe the night should come to a close. You could
challenge the other girls to events for points and stuff, but much like
this column, it lost it's entertainment value very quickly.
Overall
I would probably not recommend this game to the readers of this website.
Unless we have some ten year old girl wiffleball fans out there. In
which case you should email me a picture and your phone number.
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