What the hell has happened to the world of gaming? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to broadening the scope of games to appeal to those who don’t traditionally play them, but at what point do we need 13 games in a series aimed at pre-teen girls? If anyone had the answer to that question, it would be the French mega-publisher, Ubi-Soft (Tom Clancy’s Everything, Assassin’s Creed, Prince of Persia), who’s been taking advantage of unsuspecting girls in a ploy that would leave Chris Hansen wondering how they slipped through the cracks. The Imagine series of games is the overwhelming evidence of Ubi-Soft’s crime on the world, and at the rate they are going, by this time next year, there will be as many games in the Imagine series as there are in Koei’s cash cow rerelease baby, Dynasty Warriors, which averages 1.5 releases a year! And you thought an annual release for every sports game was redundant. Anyway, let’s begin…
Imagine: Animal Doctor, Imagine: Babysitters, Imagine: Babyz, Imagine: Ballet Star, Imagine: Cheerleaders, Imagine: Fashion Designer, Imagine: Fashion Designer New York, Imagine: Figure Skater, Imagine: Interior Designer, Imagine: Master Chef, Imagine: Movie Star, Imagine: Rock Star, Imagine: Teacher, and Imagine: Wedding Designer.
Believe it or not, I did my research and played each of these games before sitting down to write this opus of an article, and I can now say that I am not the targeted demographic for any of these titles. For one, you are always forced to be a girl. These titles are grounded in girly world, where gameplay doesn’t mean a thing as long as you get to feel like part of a teen drama or success story about climbing a career ladder. The other issue is that I’m not someone who defines the word “fun” as something that’s completely boring and undermines my intelligence.
Most of these games don’t even follow what their title implies. Take Imagine: Ballet Star, for example. I guess this game is about becoming a ballet star, but you wouldn’t know without looking at the box or cartridge first. First, you get to choose your own character from a wide selection of three 14-year-old girls. I, of course, went with the one whose “about me” section read, “Try and beat me.” After selecting your girl of choice, you get to watch an animated cutscene with some decent production values, but mindboggling logistics. How is it that a character named Margerete Isumura is German? Apparently her dad is German, and her mom is Japanese (so, is Isumura the German father’s last name, or did the mom provide the last name, or what? Margerete, check your birth certificate!) and it’s her dream to be a ballet dancer in Berlin, which somehow ties back to her dead sister who died in Germany! So, you end up enrolling in a ballet school and meeting everyone with their own unique personalities. The one student that stood out was Keira the whore. That’s right, the whore. I’m not one to take credit away from whores, but there is a time and a place, and this game directed towards little girls doesn’t seem to be it.
Perhaps I’m being too hard on the franchise. Maybe the target audience will find some enjoyment in these titles, as they are the ones who are supposed to play them. No, wait, I’m pretty sure they won’t. Every game with the word “designer” (Imagine: Fashion Designer, Imagine: Fashion Designer New York, Imagine: Interior Designer, and Imagine: Wedding Designer) in its name is the same. The biggest issue isn’t that they’re the same; this is a tactic that’s been implemented in the aforementioned Dynasty Warriors franchise in addition to EA’s NHL series until 2006, and Halo 3. The problem is that the words “design” and even “imagine” are completely ignored. Rather than actually design anything, you are forced to navigate barely-coherent menus until you hit each bullet point that your objectives require. Why not give me words to work with instead of making me figure out the star in the corner means “decorate,” or the rainbow means “I’m ready to pick a wall pattern from a selection of three options”? You can’t fail, you barely customize anything, and in the rare case that you do draw something in Imagine: Interior Designer, the tools are so poor and so low resolution, that your creation won’t even be clear enough to appreciate it.
I don’t even want to get started on any of the titles revolving around any sort of baby watching career, but it’s too late for that. In what kind of sick alternate reality do people let complete strangers (you, the teenage girl in this case) watch their babies? It sounds like a place where you have to endlessly tickle a baby using the stylus before it likes you enough to decide it’s hungry and wants you to feed it. I bet they also make you partake in stupid mini-games that don’t work half of the time. This also seems like the type of town that would explicitly instruct you to do lady-like chores such as vacuuming, cleaning the attic and washing dishes. Those dishes are of course dirty because you (teenage girl) are cooking like a girl should.
Now I could go on about the inconsistent production values across the titles, more about the stereotyping of women, and the lack of any redeeming qualities whatsoever, but I’d rather get down to the point. Where the hell is Splinter Cell’s Sam Fisher? Seriously, the series’ newest installment Conviction was supposed to come out, what, a year ago now? What was the last screenshot you saw? I want to know why he keeps getting younger and how that whole “Sam on the run” thing works out. And where is my ending to Assassin’s Creed? You know the game that ended with some guy saying, “I’ll be right back” but never returns? All I ask for is a couple of sequels, and what do I get? A dozen more entries into a mediocre series aimed towards a demographic that would buy Imagine: Shit if it had a baby on the cover having its diaper changed.
A series that shouldn’t exist in the place of many that should. If you see anyone buying these games, I recommend you hit them repeatedly until they can do what the title implies and simply Imagine whatever.
