Yes, I Reviewed My Baby Girl
Taking care of an infant isn't easy. Babies require constant attention. They're loud and they can't even think for themselves. Sleep doesn't come easy for parents and it seems like a battle every day to just get a good nights rest. Yet there is this biological need to have them. Humans would cease to exist with the lack of babies. Like the old sayin' says, "Babies make the world go 'round."
But we live in a technological age. We have TV dinners, we have mobile phones, we have video games. So why have kids when you can play a game about raising kids? Wouldn't that make it easier? And let me tell you, readers, video games always make life easier. So today, for you, I'm going to be reviewing a game I've been playing for the past couple of months. I'm sure there are billions of people out there who have played it before, but I'm going to give you my take. It's a little party game called I've Got A Baby, What Do I Do Now?
The beauty of I've Got A Baby, is that it can start a multitude of ways. There are different ways to get your baby and the developers didn't slouch on the opening cinematic with an edits or cut-aways. You, as the player, get to experience the whole child birthing process from start to finish. Also, the beginning changes depending on if your character is male or female. What I didn't actually get until the game started was that those are actually difficulty levels. And the developers really did an interesting thing with their approach to difficulty. The "male" option is the normal mode, obviosuly. But what really got me was that the "female" mode is not just a hard mode, it's brutal mode. I was seeing all the things my wife had to do and it did not look fun. I was playing this game with my wife and I'm sure in hindsight she wished she had chosen "male."
In male mode, the player tends to do a lot of waiting and watching. The game can get kinda gorey but only in the first few hours. Afterwards, it doesn't get so bad. It's hard to cover the game's whole story since takes literally thousands of hours to complete. It's got so many branching paths and decisions that it would be impossible to cover the entire thing in a review. I mean, I've probably logged in about a few hundred hours already and I still don't know where this story will go.
I've Got A Baby is, at it's heart, a collection of mini-games that must be repeated day in, day out. The game begs you to login almost every two to three hours, just to keep your baby healthy. You don't get any cool login rewards either like other games of this type. The developer has promised more DLC with new and more complex mini-games but even those won't reap helpful rewards unless you roll a"instant TV celebrity baby" for your kid's personality. Anyways, I can give a short rundown of the ones I got to witness:
Feed The Baby - It's pretty simple: Baby needs to be fed and it's up to you to feed them. It's the most common mini-game in the game and it gets extremely tedious. The tedium reaches its high point when the game wakes you up in the middle of the night with it's handy-dandy audible notification system. The notification system becomes louder and more intense the longer you try to ignore it. The notification system can be really annoying sometimes while you're trying to shake the formula or position the baby to feed. After a short while with this mini-game, it becomes an automatic success each and every time.
Change The Baby - This can also be a very frequent mini-game based on a random poop number generator. Sometimes you'll have to change the baby 5 times a day. Sometimes more. But no matter what, everyone who plays this mini-game for more than a few hours will end up losing count. There are just too many diapers to change. For an added "fun factor" the developers also liked to add in this little gimmick where the baby may or may not pee all over you when the diaper is open. It's one of the hardest parts of any mini-game so far because it requires precise timing and a lot of luck. But if you fail, you're going to have a bad time.
Rock The Baby To Sleep - I have to admit. I don't know how to get good at this mini-game. Some have natural talent, but for me, it's just too hard. It requires too much skill and techniques that don't necessarily work from match to match. Sometimes the restless knee technique works, other times I'll have to resort to the rock and walk. The last resort is the "hand to baby's grandma" technique, but everyone says it's a hack and not really used by true masters of the game. I try not to be a n00b, but it's always a tempting option .
Don't Wake Baby - By far, one of the most stressful mini-games out of the bunch, at least in my experience. Every creak in the floorboards and every door closing can cause your baby to wake up. Once the baby is awake, any of the other mini-games will occur. Important side note: This is the only pause feature in the game. So if you want to rest, eat, poop, or have a life, you have to get this one right. Sometimes it can be really easy and just requires the completion of Feed The Baby. Other times, the baby will wake up to the slightest noise and not go to sleep until three hours later when all the other mini-games above are completed. Sometimes they just never sleep. And I lied about having a life. Once this game is on, you don't have a life.
Why Is Baby Crying? - Despite what I said about all other mini-games, this one takes the cake. It is the most frustrating and hardest mini-game in all of I've Got A Baby. Sometimes, even after all other mini-games are completed, the baby will still cry. It becomes a multiple choice mini-game as to what is needed to quell baby and get baby back to sleep. This is where those pesky micro-transactions come in. You might need a rocker or some toys or maybe a change of clothes to soothe the baby. Those game developers are getting too greedy, man.
Man, these are the best graphics I've ever since in a game! Every aspect of I've Got A Baby beats out 4K and VR. You can actually touch your baby. It's almost unprecedented how real it all feels. The baby is very well animated; the little squirms and wiggles are a very nice, subtle touch. Those wiggles also affect how well one performs in the mini-games as well. Sometimes the baby will have certain animations that will throw you off balance and essentially make you lose the mini-game. It sucks but the realism is too amazing to care about small incidentals like that.
Change The Baby really benefits from the graphic fidelity. The poops are just too real. The first time I laid eyes on the first diaper change, my jaw hit the floor. Particle effects? AMAZING. Physics of drool and spit up? ON POINT. Everything is done with such love and polish, I just don't think I can look at another video game the same anymore.
I don't know if this belongs in graphics, but I have to mention that this game also features smells. This has to be the first game to do this. And the smells are just...intense... I dare anyone to do Change The Baby without holding their nose. I don't think it is even possible. Kudos once again to the developers.
Another cool aspect is how the appearance of your baby can change daily. They are pretty subtle changes, it's easy to see the differences as time progresses. The only caveat is that you must keep buying new outfits for your baby since it constantly grows out of ones it currently wears. It get very annoying because the sizes are different from company to company and have ranges for ages.
Normally, I don't usually review sound but this game features a very interesting soundtrack. Rather than opting for orchestrated or digital music, the developers of I've Got A Baby have opted to just have sound effects and no music. I assume they just want the player to fill in the music with their own soundtrack or they thought that persistent music might distract players from focusing on the mini-games. Either way, it is sort of Dark Souls-esque in this aspect. Really emphasizes the loneliness you'll be feeling after struggling to change a diaper at 2:30 in the morning.
That's not to say no music is bad. The sound effects are very realistic and very rarely repeat. Even when the baby cries, there were nuances in sense of urgency, length of cry, and volume. Sometimes, if you're good enough, the cries will let you know exactly what the baby needs. It's most likely an acquired skill (there are times where I, too, can actually do this) and it helps immensely during the hardest part of the game: Why Is Baby Crying?
The sounds can definitely get annoying though. Crying can last a long time and is loud enough to split your ear drums. Consistently listening to it makes you really wish there was an actual pause button in life sometimes. But there isn't. This is what you have. It's a baby. Get used to it.
I heard that there is planned DLC to introduce speech to your baby which could make some mini-games slightly easier, but still equally as confusing.
There are definitely some areas of improvement but the developers have routinely stated that all patches will come in form in DLC and they don't plan on stopping the flow of content. Despite the thousands of hours of content I discussed, your mileage may vary on this game. There are a ton of micro-transactions and it is very hard to get by without them. I've already spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on cosmetic DLC as well as extra items to help with some of the mini-games.
Is it worth it? That's up to the eye of the beholder. Like I said, it's a game that is life-changing. It doesn't have a score. But if I had to give it one, it would be about an 8 out of 10. Babies are a pretty solid experience with amazing graphical fidelity, but they get bogged down by the repetition of their mini-games and noise level.
But we live in a technological age. We have TV dinners, we have mobile phones, we have video games. So why have kids when you can play a game about raising kids? Wouldn't that make it easier? And let me tell you, readers, video games always make life easier. So today, for you, I'm going to be reviewing a game I've been playing for the past couple of months. I'm sure there are billions of people out there who have played it before, but I'm going to give you my take. It's a little party game called I've Got A Baby, What Do I Do Now?
Story:
 |
| Story can branch in a multitude of ways. |
The beauty of I've Got A Baby, is that it can start a multitude of ways. There are different ways to get your baby and the developers didn't slouch on the opening cinematic with an edits or cut-aways. You, as the player, get to experience the whole child birthing process from start to finish. Also, the beginning changes depending on if your character is male or female. What I didn't actually get until the game started was that those are actually difficulty levels. And the developers really did an interesting thing with their approach to difficulty. The "male" option is the normal mode, obviosuly. But what really got me was that the "female" mode is not just a hard mode, it's brutal mode. I was seeing all the things my wife had to do and it did not look fun. I was playing this game with my wife and I'm sure in hindsight she wished she had chosen "male."
In male mode, the player tends to do a lot of waiting and watching. The game can get kinda gorey but only in the first few hours. Afterwards, it doesn't get so bad. It's hard to cover the game's whole story since takes literally thousands of hours to complete. It's got so many branching paths and decisions that it would be impossible to cover the entire thing in a review. I mean, I've probably logged in about a few hundred hours already and I still don't know where this story will go.
Gameplay:
 |
| Screen shot from Feed The Baby mini-game |
I've Got A Baby is, at it's heart, a collection of mini-games that must be repeated day in, day out. The game begs you to login almost every two to three hours, just to keep your baby healthy. You don't get any cool login rewards either like other games of this type. The developer has promised more DLC with new and more complex mini-games but even those won't reap helpful rewards unless you roll a"instant TV celebrity baby" for your kid's personality. Anyways, I can give a short rundown of the ones I got to witness:
Feed The Baby - It's pretty simple: Baby needs to be fed and it's up to you to feed them. It's the most common mini-game in the game and it gets extremely tedious. The tedium reaches its high point when the game wakes you up in the middle of the night with it's handy-dandy audible notification system. The notification system becomes louder and more intense the longer you try to ignore it. The notification system can be really annoying sometimes while you're trying to shake the formula or position the baby to feed. After a short while with this mini-game, it becomes an automatic success each and every time.
Change The Baby - This can also be a very frequent mini-game based on a random poop number generator. Sometimes you'll have to change the baby 5 times a day. Sometimes more. But no matter what, everyone who plays this mini-game for more than a few hours will end up losing count. There are just too many diapers to change. For an added "fun factor" the developers also liked to add in this little gimmick where the baby may or may not pee all over you when the diaper is open. It's one of the hardest parts of any mini-game so far because it requires precise timing and a lot of luck. But if you fail, you're going to have a bad time.
Rock The Baby To Sleep - I have to admit. I don't know how to get good at this mini-game. Some have natural talent, but for me, it's just too hard. It requires too much skill and techniques that don't necessarily work from match to match. Sometimes the restless knee technique works, other times I'll have to resort to the rock and walk. The last resort is the "hand to baby's grandma" technique, but everyone says it's a hack and not really used by true masters of the game. I try not to be a n00b, but it's always a tempting option .
Don't Wake Baby - By far, one of the most stressful mini-games out of the bunch, at least in my experience. Every creak in the floorboards and every door closing can cause your baby to wake up. Once the baby is awake, any of the other mini-games will occur. Important side note: This is the only pause feature in the game. So if you want to rest, eat, poop, or have a life, you have to get this one right. Sometimes it can be really easy and just requires the completion of Feed The Baby. Other times, the baby will wake up to the slightest noise and not go to sleep until three hours later when all the other mini-games above are completed. Sometimes they just never sleep. And I lied about having a life. Once this game is on, you don't have a life.
Why Is Baby Crying? - Despite what I said about all other mini-games, this one takes the cake. It is the most frustrating and hardest mini-game in all of I've Got A Baby. Sometimes, even after all other mini-games are completed, the baby will still cry. It becomes a multiple choice mini-game as to what is needed to quell baby and get baby back to sleep. This is where those pesky micro-transactions come in. You might need a rocker or some toys or maybe a change of clothes to soothe the baby. Those game developers are getting too greedy, man.
Graphics:
 |
| Over 4K resolution and I still use JPEG format |
Man, these are the best graphics I've ever since in a game! Every aspect of I've Got A Baby beats out 4K and VR. You can actually touch your baby. It's almost unprecedented how real it all feels. The baby is very well animated; the little squirms and wiggles are a very nice, subtle touch. Those wiggles also affect how well one performs in the mini-games as well. Sometimes the baby will have certain animations that will throw you off balance and essentially make you lose the mini-game. It sucks but the realism is too amazing to care about small incidentals like that.
Change The Baby really benefits from the graphic fidelity. The poops are just too real. The first time I laid eyes on the first diaper change, my jaw hit the floor. Particle effects? AMAZING. Physics of drool and spit up? ON POINT. Everything is done with such love and polish, I just don't think I can look at another video game the same anymore.
I don't know if this belongs in graphics, but I have to mention that this game also features smells. This has to be the first game to do this. And the smells are just...intense... I dare anyone to do Change The Baby without holding their nose. I don't think it is even possible. Kudos once again to the developers.
Another cool aspect is how the appearance of your baby can change daily. They are pretty subtle changes, it's easy to see the differences as time progresses. The only caveat is that you must keep buying new outfits for your baby since it constantly grows out of ones it currently wears. It get very annoying because the sizes are different from company to company and have ranges for ages.
Sound:
 |
| Right before a game over. |
Normally, I don't usually review sound but this game features a very interesting soundtrack. Rather than opting for orchestrated or digital music, the developers of I've Got A Baby have opted to just have sound effects and no music. I assume they just want the player to fill in the music with their own soundtrack or they thought that persistent music might distract players from focusing on the mini-games. Either way, it is sort of Dark Souls-esque in this aspect. Really emphasizes the loneliness you'll be feeling after struggling to change a diaper at 2:30 in the morning.
That's not to say no music is bad. The sound effects are very realistic and very rarely repeat. Even when the baby cries, there were nuances in sense of urgency, length of cry, and volume. Sometimes, if you're good enough, the cries will let you know exactly what the baby needs. It's most likely an acquired skill (there are times where I, too, can actually do this) and it helps immensely during the hardest part of the game: Why Is Baby Crying?
The sounds can definitely get annoying though. Crying can last a long time and is loud enough to split your ear drums. Consistently listening to it makes you really wish there was an actual pause button in life sometimes. But there isn't. This is what you have. It's a baby. Get used to it.
I heard that there is planned DLC to introduce speech to your baby which could make some mini-games slightly easier, but still equally as confusing.
Conclusion:
 |
| You wish you could sleep, but this game never lets you sleep. |
There are definitely some areas of improvement but the developers have routinely stated that all patches will come in form in DLC and they don't plan on stopping the flow of content. Despite the thousands of hours of content I discussed, your mileage may vary on this game. There are a ton of micro-transactions and it is very hard to get by without them. I've already spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on cosmetic DLC as well as extra items to help with some of the mini-games.
Is it worth it? That's up to the eye of the beholder. Like I said, it's a game that is life-changing. It doesn't have a score. But if I had to give it one, it would be about an 8 out of 10. Babies are a pretty solid experience with amazing graphical fidelity, but they get bogged down by the repetition of their mini-games and noise level.
Awesome game. I think the ESRB rating would have to be at least M, but one could argue A.
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