Um…somebody's going to…um…something.

"I'm so excited for this fresh steez," intoned Shaun White as we prepared to enter his 2007 Honda Element.

“Steez?” I wondered to myself, skittishly pondering like an unmarried pentagenarian in Manchester who just saw a documentary on “destructive hoodlum youths” on Channel 4 if that was slang for crack. Not the least likely scenario, he shills himself out for anything and everything seemingly; or, he has a management team and a monetary predilection.

The transpacific Hummer derivative was silent for a good few moments until Shaun shouted, “Let’s jam up some tune-skis!”

Audioslave? Alright, it could be worse. Incubus? Alright, it could be worse.

Modest Mouse? It just became apparent he had KROQ on.

“Could I turn on KCRW?” I asked in hope of relieving myself of garish Sony-BMG corporatism.

“What’s KCRW?” Shaun replied with the sincerest of earnestness.

“I have to put up with this until Mammoth?” I thought. “Fuckin’-A!”

With nervous anticipation, I wondered what was going to be next on his iPod.

The Tings Tings and MGMT—this is like an abbreviated Oldboy where a music blogger is released from ten months of captivity.

(Mammoth is a five-or-so hour drive, what else can I do besides nitpick aural selections?)

BRMC—Baby 81: “Is he sleeping with someone from Filter Magazine?”

I manage to get a little nap in, only to be jarred by what I thought was some shit Bakersfield rock station—what I though was some shit Bakersfield rock station. Turned out to be some shit band on Shaun’s iPod named Three Days Grace, who are followed by the equally abhorrent Metro Station.

I couldn’t take it anymore, and I begged Shaun to turn on a podcast.

“Hey there, this is Shaun White here to talk about my new game Shaun White Snowboarding and jam up with some tune-skis from it.”

Oh, dear.

As I was going down Park City in Shaun White Snowboarding, the above what I was thinking; game didn’t immerse me that well.

Babyz. Party Babyz.

This was meant to be the next BG&C in some form, but that is not going to be the case. So I am just throwing it up here.

Like many other gamers, I spent some time two weekends weekend with just released software; unlike the vast majority of those gamers, I did not spent time with Mirror’s Edge, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Call of Duty: World at War, Far Cry 2, or Resistance 2.

Instead, I played through Ubisoft’s unimanual-flailing regiment Imagine Party Babyz. (Yes, “yz” not “ies.” My initial trauma from finding out that and having to type those words nearly led to me to register my discontent about this egregious Gallic fnord with the Peter Pinguid Society.)

The game is the sixteenth entry in the girl-targeted Imagine franchise and, according to a friend, is the sequel to a game called Imagine Babyz. (They noted that the first game allows players to have unlimited offspring. Extrapolate as you wish.) And is also referred by the ostensible hardcore as: that plebian trope defaming ‘our’ medium and preventing it from being recognized as artistically legitimate.

I have been anticipating this game for months—at least I think I have. I oscillate so much between irony and sincerity that the two feelings are completely indistinguishable; my emotional state primarily harbors in something akin to The New Sincerity. Really, I was more excited for Imagine: Party Babyz than the dalliances in open-world ambiguity, the exercises in beloved quirk soon to be throttled by underperformance, or the eight-to-ten-hour rising actions of Halo lineage.

If anything, the strain-inducing gameplay (the seeming difficulty of which nearly lead me to give up on the game) and generic aesthetic of Party Babyz belie the solemn sincerity of the narrative and themes.

Party Babyz follows a triumviate of asocial workaholics—particularly, it follows a twentysomething named Kelly working to get her diploma from a dubious institution in what I believe is the field of “infantile studies.” The diploma in said field would allow her to become an accredited babysitter.

There is also sage grandmother figure who I remember being named Granny; she does not really do all that much but retire and give Kelly her job. And Leo, a guy who crushes on Kelly and is so insecure that he dresses up in a lion suit—except for the end, where he is pleased that someone less qualified than him becomes his boss.

Of course, I cannot forget the “babyz,” who you actually play as and customize (the hip-hop “Fancy Dress” is the greatest unlockable in recent memory), and thanks to what I believe is the reflexive property, the success of your baby leads to the success of Kelly.

None too far removed from the nihilist’s congregation that we call gaming, the game boasts of a resignation to failure—none of the characters seem to do anything magnificent with their lives; they just bring tears to the prior generation of their family that hoped they would do something more than continue the gender roles of yore.

Is Imagine: Party Babyz the game equivalent of Dr. Dog—a nomenclatural no stigmatizing something otherwise decent? Probably not, but I appreciated Fallout 3’s opening sequence far more than I would have otherwise; I did find it to be a step up from Far Cry 2, though.

Update: In the month since writing this, I realized I really like this game—more so than Fallout 3—and think it is the best retail-released console game of 2008.