And it was something I could enjoy alone.īut by middle school, I realized that the taste I’d formed through Detective Barbie was not in line with what was considered “good.” I had graduated to Nancy Drew and other point-and-click PC mystery games by this point, but I was well-aware that these were not real games that gamers played. Gameplay, for the most part, served that narrative, so it felt immersive. There was a rich, imaginative environment that provided a backdrop to a complete narrative. It’s not as if Detective Barbie invented adventure games, but I was a kid who liked to read, and this game had much of the same appeal as the mystery books I liked to borrow from the library. You spend a lot of time examining the environment and talking to your teammates and suspects to advance the storyline.
The game mechanics are far from advanced. You’re part of Team Detective Barbie (which, yes, is actually the term used), which includes Ken and Becky, the latter of whom uses a wheelchair and is a computer whiz. In Vacation Mystery, you play as Barbie walking around a beach resort, hunting for hidden pieces of a painting, exploring hidden rooms, and talking to the guests and staff to uncover the titular mystery. Long Night of Solace is Halo’s Best Beach Level.7 Great Games for Chilling Out on Vacation.War’s a Beach: Surf and Sand in Strategy Games.And, believe it or not, that girly point-and-click mystery had more in common with the universally praised games of today than you might expect. But searching for clues in an opulent seaside hotel, hang gliding over the beach, racing dune buggies on the sand, and piecing together the mystery of the stolen jewels in this particular computer game are some of my earliest memories, and they’re fond ones.
As a five-year-old with a chunky beige Windows 98 machine and no siblings, Detective Barbie 2: Vacation Mystery was the first game I owned, and it would be my introduction into an unending affinity for slower-paced, narrative-heavy games that required patience and meticulousness.ĭetective Barbie was, of course, a game aimed at young girls and, critically speaking, nothing to write home about.
But my own fate as a would-be girl gamer was sealed.
Okay, that’s probably not even remotely true. Twenty years ago, Detective Barbie: Vacation Mystery was released, and the world of video games changed forever.