There’s this one Barbie horse game that lingers in my head as a faint, wispy memory from childhood that I’ve been trying to fully recall for years. I did not own this game. I did, somehow, own a disc that contained a demo for this unknown Barbie game, either standalone or bundled with others. My recollection is that it allowed you to pick from a couple of different horses, name your chosen horse from a limited selection of Barbie horse-like names, brush and feed them, and then ride around a simple course in first-person. I was a foolish child who could not figure out how to make the horse jump, so I never completed the track. I just picked and named a horse, brushed it, and fed it over and over again.
I also had a demo disc of Barbie Super Sports(perhaps both were on the same demo disc?), a game I similarly liked a lot but, unlike the horse game, did eventually learn how to play. I was supposed to snowboard through gates and also run into snowmen on purpose and I think avoid sticks. There was a limited series of challenges I could try, which I eventually mastered entirely, but kept playing over and over again for the fun of it. There was also a little in-game store where you could buy (with fake in-game money, it was the ’90s) new clothes for Barbie, but you couldn’t afford any of them in the demo.
This is what passed as entertainment when I was young. I was obsessed with the Barbie game demos! I remember wanting my parents to buy me these games in full, but for some reason they never did. I was once at the house of a friend who owned whatever that horse game was and I asked to play it, but still couldn’t figure out how to jump over logs, so it was a waste of time anyway. But I was so jealous of her. I wasn’t even a horse girl. I just liked the idea of customizing and caring for a virtual horse, and at the time I loved the aesthetic of Barbie generally.
And at the age of eight or nine, it felt very cool to sit at the computer, an act which required parental permission and was limited to half-hour intervals. Prior to this, I had only really played Reader Rabbit games. So as strange as this sounds, these Barbie games, to me, represented something more grown-up. I wasn’t learning how to read or do basic addition problems. I was just…”playing on the computer” as we called it. I think I’d even go so far as to suggest that Barbie games, along with other PC games like Amazon Trail. The Cluefinders, the Super Seeker series, Carmen Sandiego, and a demo disc of Timon & Pumbaa’s Jungle Games probably all contributed to my current career. Thanks, Barbie!
These memories are, as I say, fuzzy. I have not played a Barbie game in years, nor really engaged with Barbie outside of the 2023 film since I was a child. But I have a certain fondness for the way I remember those simple childhood PC games to have been. Atari and Digital Eclipse want to tap into that half-memory, half-nostalgia with Barbie Rewind, a collection of 16 classic Barbie games going as far back as 1991, and all framed by a Barbie Dreamhouse hub that you can decorate. The games are as follows:
- Barbie (1991, NES)
- Barbie Game Girl (1992, Game Boy)
- Barbie Super Model (1993, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo)
- Barbie Vacation Adventure (Unreleased, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo)
- Barbie Race & Ride (1999, PlayStation)
- Barbie Super Sports (1999, PlayStation)
- Barbie Ocean Discovery (1999, Game Boy Color)
- Detective Barbie: The Mystery Cruise (2000, PlayStation)
- Barbie Fashion Pack Games (2000, Game Boy Color)
- Barbie Pet Rescue (2001, Game Boy Color)
- Secret Agent Barbie: Royal Jewels Mission (2002, Game Boy Advance)
- Barbie Groovy Games (2002, Game Boy Advance)
- Barbie Gotta Have Games (2003, PlayStation)
- Barbie Horse Adventures : Blue Ribbon Race (2003, Game Boy Advance)
- The Barbie Diaries: High School Mystery (2006, Game Boy Advance)
- Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses (2006, Game Boy Advance)
- Barbie as the Island Princess (2007, Game Boy Advance)
I don’t know what half of these are. Once we got into the 2000s or so, it unfortunately started to become embarrassing for me to show any interest in Barbie in front of friends and classmates, so even when I finally got a Game Boy Advance I had no intention of touching any of the many Barbie games available for it. I’m looking a few of these up and man, retro Barbie games are kind of hilarious. Barbie Pet Rescue opens by suggesting Barbie will be called upon to rescue everything from rabbits to lions, which I’m pretty sure is two different jobs. Barbie Gotta Have Games appears to be a competition between two of the Barbies (or Ken) in eight inane minigames. Detective Barbie: The Mystery Cruise involves using something called the “Crime Computer” and also includes the ugliest Ken I’ve seen in my life:
Oh, I figured it out while researching for this article. The horse game in question was Barbie Riding Club! It’s not represented in here, but Barbie Race and Ride is and it’s pretty similar. Finally, finally, I can learn how to jump.
Barbie Rewind is out on November 12, 2026 for Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, PS4 and PS5, Xbox One and Series X/S, and PCdoll in an Atari T-shirt, in which case it’s $60. I’m a little old for a doll and was never into Atari enough to care about the shirt, but child me would’ve lost her mind over any Barbie doll with a video game theme
🕹️ Level up your inbox
Don’t miss the latest reviews, news and tips. Sign up for our free newsletter.
