4. Barbie Magic Hair Styler
Release year: 1997
Platform: PC
How dumb it is: Barbie Magic Hair Styler has no secrets. It’s a game where your Windows computer’s cursor helps you magically style Barbie’s hair.
It’s another straightforward concept. But I appreciate that, unlike the one-note Barbies—white, with billowing blonde hair, waists about as wide as a pencil eraser—strutting down Rodeo Drive in other Barbie games, the shoulders-up Barbies in Hair Styler are diverse. They are all terrifying, with 1997 graphics making their eyes particularly dull and their permanent smiles look like muscle spasms, but I like the range of skin tones and facial features Hair Styler allows kids to destroy with ugly, moth-y lipstick.
