Common Sense Media Review
By Christopher Healy
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Creative game uses DSi camera; potential for abuse is high.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 10+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Play
Videos and Photos
Foto Face: The Face Stealer Strikes
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's It About?
FOTO FACE: THE FACE STEALER STRIKES is a downloadable game for Nintendo's DSi handheld, which allows players to take photographs of people's faces and put them onto the game's characters. It also allows players to record their own sound bites that will become characters' speech within the game. The game itself is an old-school 2-D platformer, in the style of the original Mario Bros. games. The plot revolves around a villain known as the Face Stealer, who has made himself look like the hero (a.k.a., the player). The hero must traverse haunted mansions, wild west frontiers, and the Far East to track down and stop his (or her) doppleganger.
Is It Any Good?
Without its photo-capture capabilities, Foto Face: The Face Stealer Strikes would feel like a been-there, done-that sidescroller from the early '90s. But the game's big gimmick works far better than you might imagine, and adds a huge helping of fun and replay value to the whole experience. You can customize every character in the game, from the hero and major villains to random bats and snakes, giving each of them a face and voice of your choosing. Taking the pictures is very simple -- all you need to do is center the subject's mug in a circle on the DSi's screen. And for every character, you'll take several pics, each with different expressions, allowing the software to animate the faces (it's not great animation, but it's enough to make the mouths open and close while talking -- and it's funny). There's enough here to make Foto Face's $8 price tag seem like a huge bargain.
Online interaction: Snapshots of the hero -- with the player's chosen photograph as the hero's face -- can be shared with friends or posted online to Facebook. Since there's no guarantee that pranking teens won't photograph something other than their faces, this online component can be risky. Be sure to use the DSi's parental controls.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about what it's like to see yourself in a video game? Is it more exciting? Or merely silly? Is there anything disturbing about seeing "themselves" get hit in battle? How did they go about choosing what sound bites to record for the characters' vocals?
Game Details
- Platform : Nintendo DSi
- Pricing structure :
- Available online? : Available online
- Publisher : Electronic Arts
- Release date : November 30, 2009
- Genre : Action/Adventure
- ESRB rating :
- Last updated : June 20, 2022
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