Living out real-life jobs through video games seems to be all the rage at the moment, so we have imagine this and simulate that coming out by the bucket load.
A new entry in the job sim genre is Hello Baby! from 505 Games which puts you into the role of a babysitter, caring for a seven-month-old until he or she reaches their first birthday.
As a bloke it’s hard to imagine a worse subject matter for a video game. With a work and home life to take care of already do I really want to spend my spare time tending to a ‘virtual’ baby? What next, Office Sim 09, a realistic portrayal of life in an office which lets me enjoy a second working day when I get home in the evening?
Also, as a dad who has gone through the baby years with my real-life daughter and just about lived to tell the tale, I don’t really see the appeal of putting such duties as nappy changing and feeding times into an ‘entertainment’ package.
On a more positive note, at least you don’t get smell-o-vision with this game and you don’t end up with puke stains on your clothes.
Continuing with the positive thinking, this is what you get with the Hello Baby! game.
You get a very good looking game with excellent 3D graphics on the DS.
You also get a game which makes the most of the DS’s touch screen functionality and also makes very good use of the microphone, such as blowing into it to cool food.
Caring for your virtual baby is made easy by the various mini-games which are themed around typical babysitting activities. These include making sheep jump over a fence to send your baby to sleep and ensuring the milk bottle is the perfect temperature.
If you get anything wrong you get the sound of your baby crying but if you complete the challenges you unlock a vast array of clothes and accessories. The game boasts an impressive 10,000 combinations for how you can dress your baby.
While this game doesn’t appeal to me at all, it still does a good job of what it sets out to do.
I can see it appealing to little girls as it offers a novel twist on playing with dolls. They can now play with a moving, interactive baby instead.
My wife’s reaction to it is “best game ever!” so if the description of the game sounds good to you I would suggest following her words of wisdom rather than mine and checking out the game for yourself.
Verdict: 5 out of 10 from me, 9 out of 10 from my wife
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