10 great Barbie video games

The first official Barbie game was effectively a simulator for getting ready to go out, in which Ken invited Barbie on a series of dates – to the pool, a party, a tennis match – and the player then had to zoom off in a yellow convertible to buy the correct outfits. It was annoying that Ken got to pick all the activities, but the detailed graphics and use of digitised speech were impressive at the time. I wanted to include at least one ridiculously obscure entry and here it is. Lost Word of Jenny is a surreal Japan-only platformer based around toy manufacturer Takara's localised version of Barbie – although she had to change her name to Jenny when the company lost the official licence (and Ken's name became Jeff). In the game, Jenny has to find her way back into a theatre musical by locating sections of a door code in weird locations, including a pirate ship, a giant cake and outer space.