Kim Kardashian Hollywood Game Review

Create, customise, and get the latest fashion that supposedly matters, all in return for the slow degradation of your soul

Idolatry and IAPs

You know that a game has taken a very wrong turn when it involves occasional video messages from Kim Kardashian in which she talks directly at the camera in a faux-sincere and generic fashion to make each and every player’s custom feel faux-appreciated. Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is unfortunately a game that exists however, unfortunate because it’s a sad reflection on the idolatry of unworthy figures that typifies life in 2015, but that’s not to say that the game isn’t mildly addictive. Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is designed to appeal to an audience already receptive (aka gullible) enough to put themselves through such an experience, but its appeal is also to fashion-obsessed customisation heads, to which this game dishes out the goods in spades.Continue Reading

Game Trailer

The Lesser of Evils

Now, while the Kim Kardashian Hollywood mobile game isn’t exactly full to the brim with depth-addled gameplay (reflecting the sort of thing you’d expect from the Kim Kardashian website), a decent script, or even a few grams of pure, uncut integrity, it might make some people feel better that there is at least a bit of decent avatar editing going on amongst all of the hollow social networking and pursuit of fame for its own sake.

Though you’ve got a largely quest/mission-based structure with the gameplay, the character customisation aspect does at least add a little something to the gameplay, even if that something is only the slightly lesser evil (the other of the two being the main gameplay itself) that lures you in with some free customisation items and then slaps on a price tag of premium currency for the best and most coveted outfits and makeup items. Enter the “Kustomize” section of the game, which can be found by clicking on the coat-hanger icon in the bottom-right corner – sorry, korner – of the screen.

Fickle Like Fashion

After entering the “Kustomize” section, you’ll be greeted with an avatar editing format that will be familiar to anyone who enjoys their character customisation games such as The Sims 3 and the hugely simple Pony Creator. Your very own custom avatar stands on the left of the screen ready to be dressed and waiting to “get her hair did” whilst all of the things used to dress and make her up can be located on the right of the screen. There are different tabs that can be clicked to open up a wide range of options for each, with a facial features tab, a dedicated hairstyle tab, a tab for tops, one for bottoms (skirts, jeans etc.), one for shoes (obviously), and one for accessories such as make-up and hand bags.

I do hate to catch myself saying this, but the customisation options here are quite extensive, with hundreds of different outfits – a selection one would expect from an inherently shallow game where ultimately the customisation of your avatar is to simply out-bling everyone else and make you feel like you’re getting something in return for your time and money spent on in-app purchases.

Replacing It with a K Doesn’t Make it OK

It’s really not worth covering the gameplay itself in any detail because to be honest, the game’s developer, Glu, really haven’t bothered to develop anything worth going into detail about. The gameplay itself involves becoming as famous as possible, and when fame is the ultimate goal you really can’t even begin to pretend that you’re developing a game with any depth or meaning. Kardashian fans aren’t exactly going to care about the game’s typical, unadventurous layout or its run-of-the-mill graphics either.

Download this if you’re really into your avatar creation and customisation, but be warned: it may take a few showers for you to scrub your soul clean and also a few therapy sessions to stop you being so annoyed at the fact that the letter C is all too often replaced with the letter K. Just kill me now, but not before making sure my celebrity status is B-list at very least.

4/10 for the gameplay; 7/10 for the avatar customisation.