0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Baby Universe

         

Baby Universe is a music based simulation experience opposed to a game it was developed by 3D Kaleidoscope and published by Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for the Playstation, releasing exclusively on the console in Japan and Europe

The game released first in Japan on the 20^th of June 1997, with the European version releasing over a year later on the 9^th of October 1998. Notable people who worked on the game Haruka Yoshida who worked on the 3D modelling for the game worked on Rez in 2001 as a graphic artist, before moving on to the Sonic series as a SFX Artist and Visual Effects Artist.

Yuko Araki who worked on the sound effect for the game filled the same rope for the 1999 Wild Arms, and worked as a sound producer in 2004 on Phantom Dust. Minako Seki worked on the sound effects for the game, she would later go on to work as a Composer for Yakuza 4 in 2010, also in the same year she would work as a Voice Recording Engineer for Resonance of Fate.

Prolific Executive Producer Akira Satou who was a founding member of SCEI in 1993 and worked a Deputy President and COO, he has also worked on several major titles for the Playstation including the Wild Arms series, The Alundra series, Dark Cloud, ICO, Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec and GT5 Prologue.

Technically this is not a game but a visual experiment consisting of different world with digital kaleidoscopes with the player choosing various shapes from a total of twelve provided and a choice of 8 soundtracks to go with them, the objects can be modified by the player with their surface colour, movement and frame rate changeable.

You then watch them move around and interact with each other, the player has minor input using the d-pad and face buttons, these effect the axis of the shapes as well as bend and reflect light and change their angle. Baby Universe also allows the player to use their own CDs with sound wave patterns appearing on screen to accompany the music.

  

Critic reviews for this game are a bit thin on the ground with just three that I have been able to find and it is not good news for this music/visual effects game with reviews ranging from poor to very poor. Starting with the best which comes from French publication Consoles Plus who scored the game at a lowly 30.

Their short review in issue 81 opens with That's the pearl of the month. The "game" whose interest borders on absolute zero. They concluded by saying  that it may cheer up evenings, the principle may be effective, but it scammed for a product that still costs 299 f (£40.42). moreover, the new Playstation already have a similar function in the cd menu.

Absolute Playstation were next up with their 29 rated review, the reviewer could only see drugged up clubbers wanting to extend their hallucinations a bit longer getting any satisfaction from this game. They concluded with, I suppose a modern day artist (you know... those who say a pile of housebricks is a symbol of todays society) may wish to run a constant playback of their kaleidoscope recordings when house guests arrive. It may also work for insomniacs.

The final review from NowGamer who scored Baby Universe at a dismal 20, with the reviewer first apologising for their review being quite so damming, before going on to say that Bay Universe hardly has anything going for it, unless you count of course it being colourful, the reviewer then also commented that sick is also colourful.

The reviewer coming to the conclusion that they can’t think of anyone that would want to own this, they continued by saying We know a fair few casualties of the ‘rave’ scene, and although most of them see swirly patterns on a permanent basis, not even they were impressed with Baby Universe! To conclude the review recommended going to a toy store and buying a cardboard kaleidoscope instead.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude who unsurprisingly don’t stock this European and Japanese only release, somewhat more surprising Retrogames.co.uk don’t list or stock this title. So quickly moving on to eStarland.com where we find the game listed.

At the time of writing this however the game is currently out of stock, the game has a usual used price of between $5.97 and $9.95, the version that eStarland have when in stock is the imported Japanese version so would require a Japanese console to play.

eStarland.com also offer a trade in for this game with them willing to pay up to $3.50 for a complete used copy of the game. The trade in for this game must have the original case or no trade in will be offered, if it does have the case and no manual you could get up to $2.80 for your copy.

Lastly we move on to Amazon.com where we find a decent supply of copies available, with a like new copy jumping out straight away at the top of the page for $8.86 once shipping has been added in, another copy in very good condition is priced at the same and comes with free shipping.

Used prices do continue to rise reaching a high of around $30, these copies however can be ignored with new copies coming in at much cheaper prices, the current cheapest you can picked up a new copy on Amazon is $12.54 and it comes with free shipping.

Another new copy is priced up at $15.44 again this copy comes with free shipping, generally new copies peak around the $20 to $30 mark with one new copy being the exception being currently priced up at a whopping $89.99.

Written by

P J Gibbon