In an effort to prove to one reader, JoeSFO, we at gamegirl.com don't only review the hottest titles in an attempt to appear leet, I boldly went where no gamegirl has gone before: I played and reviewed Imagine: Babyz.
I couldn't help but roll my eyes as the title screen came up with a little brat finger painting on the walls. In this game, you play a young teenage girl who is watching her grandma's house while she is away on holiday. After having a brief introduction to the talking stork, a neighbor knocks on your door and promptly dumps her child off for the afternoon. From here, it is like a virtual pet game where players must care for the toddler until the mother returns.
What happens next is confusing gameplay instructions and unintuitive commands. Luckily, you get to ask the stork what he thinks the baby needs... and you will be doing so after EVERY SINGLE completed task, thanks to having virtually no other indication as to what the baby's needs are. The only problem is he seems to be wrong... a lot. Even in following the stork's direction to the T, you still seem to always return an unhappy baby to an even unhappier mother. The actions needed to care for the child are crafted into minigames for example: to feed the baby you must follow a spoon through a maze with your stylus, all the while getting the pleasant experience of the baby screaming at the top of it's lungs. If at any point you miss with your stylus (or cough, or move) you have to start from the beginning, prolonging the duration of having to listen to the baby's wails.
Unlike this particular reader mentioned (see quote below), this game makes no mention or attempt to educate users on safer sex. Unless you count the babies' constant screaming, which was enough to remind me to take my pill and enough to cause my husband (albeit semi jokingly) to say, "we are never having kids." Now, it needs to be said I am NOT anti-baby, simply anti-screaming-baby-in-my-hobby-medium.
Lastly, I think the game sends the wrong message to little girls, for a couple of reasons: First, It shows little budding girl gamers there are girl games and boy games and may discourage them from ever experimenting with anything other than Bratz or Barbie type games. Secondly, it reinforces an outdated gender role by showing little girls what is expected of them. Imagine: Babyz is a blatant declaration that this is a game for girls, to show that females should concern themselves with taking care of the children and, when not busy with that, vacuuming or doing the dishes (Did I fail to mention there was both a vacuuming and dish washing mini game in Imagine: Babyz????) . Maybe not everyone will see it this way. After all, little Resident Evil players don't (typically) grow up to be gun-toting zombie hunters. But there again, games like Resident Evil are not reinforcing existing gender stereotypes (that the media already reinforces) to impressionable young girls. One could argue the game is no different than playing with dolls, but when I was young my dolls weren't my children... they were the crew on my pirate ship. At least imagination gives you the option to not buy into the pigeon-holing of the female gender.
Personal politics aside, Imagine: Babyz functions poorly as a game. I didn't always know what to do and I am 23 years old, which left me to wonder how the target audience fairs at playing the game. The repetitive tasks get old very quick, and you are easily discouraged by the simple fact you can never seem to make certain babies happy. Quite frankly, I found it easier to make the animals in Zoo Keeper happy (read: impossible task preformed) than the babies in this game. And after the first one or two babysitting sessions, you've done pretty much all there is to do in the game. I'd give this title a 2 out of 10, and I'd strongly recommend Nintendog or Tamagotchi if you are looking for a virtual life form to care for (read: enthusiastically look after for a week then forget about).
I know this website bashes games like "Imagine: Babyz", probably because it's not "hardcore" enough and takes away gobs and gobs of street cred, but, in reality, it is consistently one of Amazon's bestsellers and consistently within their top 75. A good chunk of people is buying games like that. I'd like to think it's a ton of guys buying up "Imagine: Babyz" as part of an educational study on practicing safe sex, but I doubt that's really the case. Maybe instead of bashing games like "Imagine: Babyz" because they're not tomboy enough, games like those should be applauded for getting more girls into gaming at a younger age. More and more games are specifically targeting females, and that should be considered better than the alternative. Genders *are* different. -JoeSFO
Genders ARE different, but our games don't have to be. Now can we bash this game for its poor gameplay, rather than it's lack of tomboy appeal?
CAUTION: What you just read contained OPINIONS. If it bothered you, don't comment. Instead, turn off your PC and GO GET A LIFE!
-Blizzard.com's main page has been the topic of much conversation. Cryptic images have been appearing as teasers on the site. These teaser's meanings are expected to be unveiled at Blizzard World Wide Invitational this weekend in Paris. The last time something mysterious like this took place Starcraft 2 was shortly thereafter announced. Any idea's as to what these new images mean? Many speculate and hope that this splash will bring in the announcement of Diablo 3. Diablo 3 has been talked about since Diablo 2 success back in 2000 and again with Blizzard acquiring the URL Diablo 3.com. 
-A young man named Steven Priddey has been convicted of stealing a PSP in England. The back story is: one day Steven entered a Cash Concepts and tired to purchase a PSP. However his currency of choice was cannabis. The employee that he claims to have gotten approval for this transaction denies this and says he noticed the PSP was missing and checked the security cameras. The employee later admitted to have purchased cannabis from Steven several times in the past. 
-GameStop has unintentionally confirmed rumors of some new game show games. Bob Barker's The Price is Right and Hell's Kitchen will be appearing on the DS and the Wii. 
