Lauren Luke is a very business savvy lady. Lauren Luke is an extremely driven single mother. Lauren Luke is a make-up expert and a a YouTube sensation.
However, it would appear Lauren Luke doesn’t know much about games. Rather than capitalising on what she already has: a book deal, a make-up range, an extremely successful YouTube channel, Lauren had to go and agree to a videogame project. And this is where I want to say “fire your staff, Lauren, or do your research yourself, because you got your name associated with a pretty lousy piece of software”.
The aim of the game is to achieve your ‘supermodel makeover’ by going through 10 different contests in which you have to create complete looks (clothes, make-up and accessories) according to a few different themes. Said looks are then submitted to the judges and you get a mark out of 10. As you win contests, you unlock some mini-games such as Memory, Trending, Beads etc.
So far it doesn’t sound too bad, I know. There is a “but”. A big, fat “but”.
The graphics look like they were made for some black market game & watch rip off from 1987. The music is possibly the most annoying game music ever “composed”. My ears are still bleeding. But considering the game targets people from age three and up, it's not so bad as people of that age generally don’t care so much about things such as graphics, music, etc. If anything, the look and sounds of the game would be appealing to a toddler used to garish plastic toys and midi versions of nursery rhymes.
What really bothers me with this game is the usability: the interface is totally useless. Since we are talking about applying pixel make-up here, the game could do with a little bit more precision and information. The colour palette is supposed to range from pink to brown but all you can see is greige (which is very fashionable this season by the way).
All in all, I feel pretty sorry for Lauren Luke who might has well have done a big old poop on the solid brand she has been building for the past couple of years. This game is not good, even for a toddler.
If you want to see Lauren’s tutorials, I would recommend you watch them on YouTube and if your kid wants to play make-up artist, I would recommend you buy him/her a doll.
Lauren Luke's Supermodel Makeover is available for the Nintendo DS for around £13.