For a game that banks on a license of two cute teenaged girls, one would think that the developers would spend time to make sure that they actually look like said girls. Alas, such is not the case in Magical Mystery Mall. Mary-Kate and Ashley are gross caricatures at best, and downright ugly at worst. The PlayStation may be old, but it can certainly do better than in this game. The environments are the same, filled with seams, ugly textures, and repetitive looks. The snowboarding tracks are as bland as you can get. The only time that the game’s graphics are really any good is in the level that has you taking pictures with the boys, where there are actually a lot of objects and things to look at. But the game’s frame-rate slows to an absolute crawl when a lot of things are happening -- this is most evident in the dancing levels, where turning on certain special effects throws Magical Mystery Mall into a sort of staccato version of reality. It’s absolutely awful, distracting, and annoying.

The voice acting, on the other hand, is solid -- well, as solid as it can be. Some of the lines are utter cheese, but they’re aimed at young girls, not hardcore gamers, so I’ll let them slide. The girls have a very, very annoying habit of commenting on every little thing, multiple times at that. “Rad dance!” or “nice choice!” 300 times will make you want to scream. The music is pretty bad, with grating MIDI tunes that’ll have you reaching for the remote as fast as you can. But, at least in the Time Square dance level, it can actually be rather passable. I found myself tapping my toes despite myself. It’s not exactly stellar, but it does the job.

Unfortunately, Mary-Kate and Ashley: Magical Mystery Mall is yet another attempt to pass off weak gameplay and call it a “kid’s game.” It’s better than most of the genre in that at least one play mode is genuinely interesting. But in the end, it’s something that even its target audience will play for a bit and then put away, never to bother with again.

The game centers on the exploits of Mary-Kate and Ashley, whose hijinx have caused an entire mall to “freeze.” To unfreeze it, you’ve got to collect five magical gems, and each gem is the prize for beating a different challenge. Collecting the five gems wins the game, but you’re allowed to explore the mall afterwards to replay anything that you like.

Each game mode has its own controls and issues. The first that I played, Lizzie’s Lunch, is the closest to pure arcade action. You’ve got to bus food and, in later rounds, drinks to patrons, doing it fast enough to keep them happy. The faster that you get it to them, the larger your tips, and since you have to get $100 in tips to get the gem, you’ve got to be as fast as possible. Most -- no, all -- of the difficulty of this mode comes from the sloppy controls. Yes, she’s on roller skates, but that doesn’t preclude being a little more precise in the game. It’s a pain to get some of the food to the right people, but it’s not particularly challenging once you know what you’re doing.

The second mode that I played, and perhaps the most gratuitous, was the snowboarding stage. You race down some very weak tracks in an attempt to beat various opponents. There are different boards with different attributes as well. The easiest way to beat it is to pick the fastest board, the slowest opponent, and simply race through all the flags. For some odd reason, going through flags gives you a speed boost while missing them gives your opponent one. It’s only snowboarding in the vaguest sense, and it’s not particularly entertaining.

The third mode is one where you must take pictures of one of the girls with two boys, trying to make it look like she’s friends with them. This one’s actually quite entertaining, as it’s often difficult to get a really good shot. You need them centered, looking towards you, and Mary-Kate or Ashley not in a stupid pose. Of all five modes, this one I found to be the most enjoyable.

There’s a similar mode where you dress the girls up and have them pose for the camera (which you also control), but it’s all about the shots. We picked some of the most godawful sets of clothing for them to dress in, and after one try, I got enough cool shots to win the gem. The scoring’s pretty arbitrary, and you’ve basically got to take shots that the game likes.

The last mode is the most touted one, and perhaps one of the least fulfilling. You select dance moves for a music video, then control the camera and special effects while the video’s running. I simply made patterns with the colored bars above the moves, then changed the camera whenever the beat seemed to suggest it, and changed special effects regularly. This had me winning the dance in two or three tries. The game also chugs like a bear when certain special effects are used, so be forewarned.

All of these are tied together by a mall that you can walk through... very slowly. There’s also a bonus hut where you can cash in the bonus tokens you get, and open up new moves or abilities in the various mini-games. But it’s not compelling enough to play any of the modes more than once or twice.

I beat Mary-Kate and Ashley: Magical Mystery Mall in fewer than two hours, but I can understand that I’m not the target age group for the game. I can see Lizzie’s Diner being a rather difficult one for kids to beat, especially the later levels, and if they don’t do the cheap thing with the snowboarding levels and pick the slow guy, they can actually be quite difficult to beat. The two picture-taking levels are a matter of getting the shots right, and can be done after a few tries, and the dance level is a matter of figuring out how the game wants the camera and effects to be and pleasing it. It may not look that great, but it’s how it’s scored.

The controls are generally pretty sensible, and the two camera-based modes share them to cut down on confusion. It’s definitely suggested to either read the instruction book or use the in-game help before each mode, though, as certain buttons are needed to get higher scores (zoom, for example). The raw mechanics are obviously flawed in a few of the mini-games -- snowboarding is everything but, the clothes-matching has little effect, the controls in the Diner are horrendous, and dancing is relatively arbitrary. The menus, fortunately, are easy to understand and navigate.

PS2: The game’s load times are pretty minimal, but the Fast disc option shrinks them even more. There’s little in the way of graphical improvement with the Smooth option, and since sprites are pretty abundant in the game, there’s quite a bit of ugly boxing. The game looks a tad better with it, but not particularly so.

Yes, I realize that Mary-Kate and Ashley: Magical Mystery Mall is a kid’s game. That doesn’t excuse its flaws. When my nephew comes over, he wants to play games that are fun, not games that are geared towards him, and the same goes for my young female cousins. It’s not enough to have a kid-friendly license -- you’ve got to have a kid-friendly game too. And while Magical Mystery Mall is miles better than most kid-oriented games, it’s still a poor title. Unless the kidlets are obsessed with the twins (if you are, steer clear -- they’re ugly as sin in the game), they may want this game, but they’d be better off with titles that are both fun and easy for the young to play. Spyro will be played for years to come by the young, but Magical Mystery Mall will be soon forgotten.