America's Next Top Model
Rating: E-10+ - Everyone 10+

If you have always dreamed of being a model - you might enjoy dipping into this game. The setting is made deliberately lush, from the tropic island setting, to the stretch limo to ferry you to hither and yon, to shopping and fancy restaurants. You are one of ten competitors for the title of America's Next Top Model. At the end of the week, contestants are judged and the lowest scorer is eliminated. The whole panoply of model activity is here from clothes, make-up, fitness, posing, photography, to the final catwalk. Story mode will take you through the whole process, while Mini-Games jump you into the model activities such as Makeup and Catwalk.

The 3D locations are vast - the mansion and grounds where the models stay as well as the city were all the shopping and modeling activities take place. Characters walk around with sign balloons over their heads - a little like the Sims. Button 1 puts a map on the screen but the areas are unlabeled. While the game is ambitious, it lacks the polish that would make it America's Top Model Game. You never get to see the results of your make-up, and I would like a little more free-play here. There is a strange style of animation that I have seen before, where the character's hands move wildly as they talk as though they were doing signing. I would much prefer if their hands just fell limply at their sides. If you can ignore these little annoyances, there is a lot of game activity here.

I did object to the cattiness of the other models. Is this an accurate depiction of the profession?

Fun Factor: Pretty good
Female Factor: It's a woman's world
Player Friendly: Labeling the map would have been nice. Guess they got tired.

Reviewed by: Editor - Sep/10