Hands-On Preview: Imagine Party Babyz

New from Ubisoft’s Imagine line up of games aimed squarely at the tweeny girls comes Imagine: Party Babyz for the Wii. It’s a mini-game collection for four players where there are fresh challenges for every season, and all the characters are costumed toddlers.

First we put together a jigsaw puzzle. Not terribly difficult– you just point and click with the A button, slave driving little babies to carry the oversized pieces to their outlined resting places. The babies wore outfits like a purple magician ensemble or piggy suit (I imagine the costumes are unlockable as you progress).

Bottle feeding was more involved. First you have to shake the Wiimote to prepare a bottle. Then, hold it up as if you were sucking the warm milk yourself, but watch to see when Jr. is finished. No baby meal is complete without a satisfying burp, but then for some reason the object is to see how many bottles you can down in the time limit. Go figure…

Playtime wound down with a quick balance game, where the tykes try to walk across an inflated area without falling down. Once you make it a few steps you’ll charge a jump move that can destabilize the other babies.

During all of these activities, I tried to visualize myself as a 12 year old girl. Of course, when I was 12 I was playing Star Fox and Mario Kart 64 (Such a Nintendo kid! There were so many good PlayStation games that year, sigh…) when I wasn’t running my brains out on the soccer field. Obviously this isn’t something I would play– now or then– but it was certainly playABLE.

Something good to bring on a babysitting trip, perhaps? Don’t ask me what to do with these girl games other than try them out on some girls– I honestly don’t know. Ubisoft has said that they’ve been surveying around, and the Imagine brand has been selling like crazy, so either there is something to this or a lot of parents don’t know what to buy for their kids.

We can expect the Party Babyz entry in the series sometime soon, but look out for Imagine Teacher on DS shipping August 12.