American Girl: Mia Goes For Great

Some titles are so defined with a genre that not all gamers will likely appreciate them. The American Girl license has specific and targeted appeal. It therefore stands to reason that games based on the license would fall into that niche – albeit a very wide niche with a potential target in the millions.

While the company has had games and puzzles, the foray in the video-game market is a little more recent, and the latest release in that trend is American Girl: Mia Goes for Great. THQ is the publisher of the title, targeting gamers 8 and older. Featuring two strategy-based mini-games, Mia Goes for Gold is an adventure title that also sports keyboard driven figure skating shows. With a program builder, gamers can design practice routines, then guide the game’s star through those routines.

But rather than an adult’s take on the game, it’s better to hear from a younger gamer – one of those for whom the game was targeted.

Emma, 11, files this review of the game …

Have you ever wanted to do a sport but your family doesn’t do that sport? Well, that’s sort of what Mia does; she wants to figure skate but her family likes hockey.

Mia is a girl who wants to be a great figure skater. Her story begins when her coach says she’s going to have a solo in the Winter Show. So now Mia has to get a costume and music and a routine. Mia, with the help of her family and friends, has to get everything ready for her show. After everything is ready, you get to perform your show; after your show your coach tells you and your parents that you get to perform in Regionals. Now you get more music, another costume and a longer show.

In Mia Goes for Great, you can walk around, find your music player and earphones, help your brothers and friends in mini-games, and all sorts of fun activities besides preparing for shows. One of the mini-games is helping your brother clear the snow from the pond, which is really fun.

In the game you use the arrow keys doing routines, and walking you can also use the mouse and click where you want to go. This game has good three-dimensional graphics that are really nice. The sound is also really nice; you hear instructions well and lots of background noises. It’s almost like you are really there.

I think this game is really fun and exciting. I would play this game a lot. It was a great experience for me.

All the objects found in the game go into an inventory screen, which is Mia’s skate bag. One of the big attributes of the game is the accessibility. Emma never stumbled in navigating the menus, and while she was able to complete the game in a couple of hours, she went back later to repeat sections of it, notably the skating performance areas.

The game does borrow from adventure titles in that all the conversations are carried out by choosing a line from a selection of available topics. The skating element is a matter of matching the right key stroke to the online prompt. The game does allow time to hit the appropriate key, thereby stressing success over challenge.

The game plays well on either an XP or Vista machine.

The review scoring below is also Emma’s summary.

Gameplay: 7.0
The game is fun and easy to play.

Graphics: 8.0
The graphics are really nice and I liked them.

Sound: 7.5
The music and other sounds are clear.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 8.0
I liked the skating ideas and the adventure in this game. It was fun helping Mia get ready for her competitions.

Overall: 7.8
I loved playing this game. The game might sometimes call for a little patience when you’re rehearsing for your competitions. I would recommend Mia Goes for Great.