As a little girl growing up in the 80’s, I played a lot of commodore games. This one would have been my favorite when I first got into the Commodore! You play Barbie, who gets a phone call from Ken to set up a date. You have to listen to the call, find out where the date will be (the prom, the pool, etc.,) and then drive around town and get ready!
The moment you step out the door, you are in your Barbie car.
You can drive at varying speeds, and I remember her hair would fly out behind her in time with how fast she was driving. There are many shops to enter and lots of things to wear, from hairstyles to shoes. There’s a dress shop, a bathing suit shop, a sports shop, a hair parlor, a shoe shop and more. You can change the color and pattern of nearly everything, so I always had fun trying to make the ugliest outfit for Barbie. I especially liked dressing her up in a weird checkered prom dress with blue hair to go on a casual picnic, and an ugly bathing suit to go to prom. Anyways, you have one hour to get
| Screenshots: |
 | | |
her dressed up.
Then you have to drive back home and if you make it on time, Ken will show up and you will be rewarded with a photo of Barbie as you dressed her with Ken at their date location (with some cheesy commodore-style music, of course!). This is especially why I liked dressing Barbie all wonky-like: seeing her in some ugly prom dress next to ken in a bathing suit in front of the pool was strangely rewarding and giggle-inducing.
Don’t be even one minute late coming home, because Ken is a jerk and will leave without you! If you’re late, you come home to find a note taped to your door with some lame excuse from Ken, essentially saying ‘better luck next time’. A useful way to make it home on time is to keep driving around the ever-looping street until it’s close to the time you are to meet up with Ken. Then when just 5 game minutes are left, slow right down in front of the home and make sure to enter the very moment it turns to the proper time.
All in all, I say give this game a shot! While it certainly would seem lame to me now had I never played it before, it’s actually quite amusing.
