zippdementia's Hello Kitty Party review

To be honest, I'm ambivalent about this review.

Once again, you do a great job of incorporating subtle wit into your arguments. There were several times I smiled and even chuckled. I also like how you establish credibility early by explaining you do at least have some background with the Hello Kitty universe, so the review obviously isn't "let's take something childish and just trash it." That gave the rest of the review a little more oomph.

However, I'm not sure what you really accomplish by discussing how you and your friend took turns playing the game. Sure, your friend being female helps a bit, but late in the review you make the declaration that not even little girls would enjoy it. How do you really know that? Had it been you, your friend, and a little girl taking turns, I could probably buy that. Since it was two adults, it's a little hard to swallow how you two would know exactly how a younger kid would react. Maybe the game simply isn't fun, irregardless of age. However, I can't see a kid having the exact same reaction as the two of you.

I don't like to disagree with criticism, especially when someone goes out of their way to take the time and give it, but I think I explain that part satisfactorily. I will admit that I was very much concerned people wouldn't THINK I explained it satisfactorily, because any time you don't like a kid's game the immediate argument is "well, that's cause you're not a kid." While playing the game, though, I took a lot of time to make sure I wasn't doing that and was giving it a fair assessment.

Thus all the focus on how short games are, how little involvement is needed, how there's no reward system... I don't care how old you are, these are basic requirements of a game for anyone over two years old. Even Candyland, which is pretty much randomly drawing cards, is a more involved game than this.

I do happen to be studying child education and thus child psychology and development and I could have gone into a lot of technical reasons why children need more stimulus than this game offers, but I figured it would be pretty dry material.

Summarizing it as "kids like to have fun and no one finds 5 seconds of gameplay fun" was my compromise.

Maybe so. I did see how you covered fundamentals for any halfway decent game and agree with your assessment.

I think I'm most confused about using your friend to "help review the game." I'm still not sure how that really augments the discourse. Maybe I'm just missing something here.

That one I qualified a little less than maybe I should've, or maybe it's just overly subtle. It served two purposes. Initially I meant it just as a gimmick to give me an "in" to writing about the game (plus I really did review it with her, no way I'm tackling Hello Kitty alone). After Jason gave me some very helpful criticism on my first draft, I saw the opportunity to use it to also show how the game, ironically, isn't multi-player compatible.

This whole game raises issues, for me, in how we view our children. I'm a graduate student in education (eventually seeking to teach film) and a proponent of Imaginative Education (http://www.ierg.net/) which shows how certain forms of media can really screw with the development of cognitive abilities. I'm a big fan of video games and actually believe that they have the ability to increase cognitive ability, but not when they are this mindless.

I saw the opportunity to use it to also show how the game, ironically, isn't multi-player compatible.

Ahhhhh..... Okay, now it makes more sense.