Your company will be made up of six teenage girls (including yourself) who have pooled their money together to buy a bright red Geo Tracker which they have nicknamed McKenzie. McKenzie stands for how the girls feel when they are together and the letters represent the follow words: Marvelous, Cool, Kinetic movement, Everlasting friendship, Non-conformist, Zany, Ingenious, and Empowered. You put it all together and you have the McKenzie & Co.
The game starts off with a main menu where you will be able to get acquainted with the six girls. There's Kim, Elizabeth, Carly, Sam, Mckee, and Trish. Photos of each of the girls will show up on the screen as you listen to them introduce themselves and their friends. Once you have met the McKenzie & Co. you'll meet the rest of the gang at Madison High in full motion picture quality and sound. As another school week comes to an end, you'll learn that the girls are planning a slumber party where they will check out an advanced copy of the yearbook, and that you have exams coming up on Monday.
You then meet Brian Smith, your best guy friend whose shoulder is always available for you to cry on. It's too bad that he isn't one of the guys that will ask us out to the Prom. Anyhow, he gives you your first selection in the game where you choose who you want to be, Carly or Kim.
As you and your friends flip through the photos of the yearbook at the slumber party, your friends ask who you would like to go to the Prom with. Depending on whether you are Carly or Kim, you'll be given a choice between Brandon and Derrick, or Steven and Brett. Once you make your selection, the following day at the music store a friend informs you that your guy has been spotted in the store. The game will present you with different situations and options on what you should do and say in hopes to eventually be asked out to the prom.
Having a guy ask you out is one of your main goals in the game, but you still have homework, baby sitting, a part-time job and other chores to attend to. They are represented by twelve mini-games that are much more fun than real life work and exams. The mini-games are nothing to get excited about and are not anything fancy. Many of the games resemble some form of Tetris that when you make certain patterns, different events will occur such as making money or passing an exam. Other games include a memory game with Shakespeare quotes, a biology game with many ugly bugs, and still other games that are like Space Invaders.
There are twelve different areas in the game where you can go, four in each area of the town, all of which are found on the map. It's important to move around on the map and throughout the city to make sure you have done everything you should have before going back to school on Monday. Certain events must occur before being allowed in some areas of the town and they will be shown as closed when you try to access them. You'll be able to visit the beach, arcade, mall, under 21 club, restaurants and more.
The McKenzie gang loves to shop for cloths! There are over 400 items of clothing and 20 pairs of shoes for you to try on and buy. If you love to shop, you'll have to work to earn your spending money because you start the game off with only $100. The mall is filled with real live stores all filmed with the different items that they have for sale. You'll be able to select different outfits, try them on, and decide if you want to buy them. As you try different pieces of clothing on, you'll see yourself in a mirror just like you would in real life.
Back home in your room, you'll find a telephone for calling your friends, an answering machine and computer for checking your messages, a note pad that you use as a diary to write down the events in your life, some magazines and books, your closet of cloths and your make-up table. At your make-up table you'll be able to put on blush, eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, lipstick, and even do your eyebrows! When you sit down to do your hair, you'll have six possible styles for each of the two characters giving a total of 12 hair styles to choose from.
The full motion video in the game is excellent and runs in 65000 colors or more. If you try to run the game in 256 colors you'll get black and white video. With a 486 DX-50 and eight megabytes of memory, I had no trouble at all playing with the game and having good video playback results. The game is designed to play in a 640 by 480 screen mode and anything higher will just create a black border around the original image size.
The sound was ideal, clear and was accompanied with music from four different bands located in New Mexico. Along with the five CD-ROMS that the game comes on (the main disc and four guy discs) a sixth CD is included that features twelve songs by four groups: Strawberry Zots, Poet, Cool Notes, and Tee Green.
Also found inside the box is some make-up, instructions on how to use make-up, and a discount coupon to buy two more guy CD-ROMS featuring Aaron and James for only $9.95 plus shipping. On the main menu and inside the box is a pink ribbon that informs you about Breast Cancer awareness. A girl is never too young to learn about it. There's also a card in the box to receive some free stuff like stickers, earrings, a necklace, and more.
If you manage to do things right, your guy will ask you to the Prom. He'll come and pick you up with your parents filming everything (how embarrassing) and off you go. The game ends with shots from the yearbook and a photo of you and your date. The whole game has over 750 possible Prom photos all depending on what you wore, who you went to the Prom with, how you set your hair and make-up, etc.
| Graphics: | 86% |
| Sound: | 80% |
| Music: | 88% |
| Gameplay: | 79% |
| Interest: | 80% |
| Overall: | 82% |
486 DX-50 MHz or higher,
Min 8Mb memory,
Windows 3.1 or Windows 95,
Hard drive required,
Double speed CD-ROM drive or faster,
Local bus graphics card with VESA compatible drivers
Sound Blaster or 100% compatible
Microsoft Mouse and 100% compatibles
American Laser Games, Inc.
Her Interactive division
4801 Lincoln Rd. NE
Albuquerque, NM 87109
| Telephone: | +1-505-880-1718 |
| Fax: | +1-505-880-1557 |
Web site: Her Interactive
Email: heractive@aol.com
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