Imagine: Babyz New for Nintendo DS Lite: Video Game Review

I'm into Simulation games. My first simulation game for my Nintendo DS was Nintendogs. I thought it was cool....for about a day. I never picked the game back up again, and from my understanding most Simulation games that involve raising something, or teaching something... are all the same.

In Nintendogs we raised/taught a puppy. After that success, games began to flood the market, we have options to raise and teach horses, hamsters, dolphins, cats, and now... frigging babies.

Yep, they went to the extremes with this one The concept seems wrong, but the developers knew it would tease every little girl ages 3-12 every time they saw the title looking back at them on the shelves.

It's hard to miss. A cover with oh so UH-DORABLE babies scattered about. Real babies, cute cuddly widdle things. Hell, the cover was nearly enough to sell to me. I knew though, I knew this game Imagine: Babyz was nothing more than Nintendogs done all over again, only this time using babies.

I didn't end up with this game, but my niece did. When I first saw the games cover I must say I was interested. It looked like something I would enjoy toying around with when I was to get bored.

However when she passed the Imagine: Babyz over to me, I was shocked at how utterly retarded this game looked.

The first thing I noticed were the horrendously cartoonish fake graphics. I would of at least thought they would of 'tried' to make the babies look real. Like on the title cover!

Instead I was staring at an ugly bloated blond haired baby that looked like an ugly toddler out of the Sims 2 games.
My niece was pretty excited about the baby girl though. She told me in the beginning of the game she got to babysit. Okay I grasp it. You are babysitting this toddler, and you have to fulfill its needs, otherwise it'll do what real babies do. Cry.
 
She then showed me some more aspects of the game. She tapped on a dresser in the babies room, and up popped a new menu with a few outfits for the baby to wear. Everything was just repeats only in different colors. Like the sun dress for the baby. It was cute, but the only one. In red, yellow, and purple. Not too many choices. So that was bothersome.

After tapping on a new outfit for the baby, the thing began to wail. It obviously needed it's dirty diaper changed, or wanted a nap, or a bottle, or to be played with. My niece gave the baby a nap. Once the baby was placed into her cradle, she could then use they DS Stylus to rock it back and forth till the baby fell asleep.

Even though the game was repetitive, and similar to all of these new PETZ games, Imagine; Babyz kept my niece occupied for the entire day (and the kid even had it set in Spanish, so she had no idea what the hell was going on- the game though is basic enough as to where she was able to understand it, even with the language set up wrong).

I wanted to knock on the game, because it does have bad graphics, the game play is repetitive, and the sounds in the game are so goddamn annoying you want to break the thing. However, it kept my 5 year old niece occupied for the entire day. She is hooked to her baby, and I have not seen her part from her baby since she was given the game on Christmas.

Recommendation:
 
I feel that younger girls will enjoy this one. Older girls will grow bored very quickly. Young girls 5-7 though will find this game to be enjoyable, and give them a sense of pride knowing they were able to take care of the virtual baby.

Although I find it to be lame, youngins are loving their DS Babyz.