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In the interest of fairness, I want to share with you a little of my own baby experience before we jump into the review. I had a challenging baby. She ate poorly. She screamed about 8 hours a day (yes, I did time it). She was nearly impossible to comfort. We later found out she was lactose intolerant and that had been causing many of the issues with her milk. We decided early on that she wasn't going to have any siblings. Anyway, after the many, many, many hours of screaming, listening to a virtual baby scream makes me twitch. I finished diapering my child. I don't want to diaper another — even a virtual one with the scent removed. I do adore my daughter. She's the center of my world — but I would not willing go through another baby for anything (and yet, here we are).

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, let's look at Baby Pals. In case you wondered, I started Baby Pals expecting to be tortured by a screaming virtual baby. To my surprise, little virtual Lissy has kind of grown on me. I think I'll actually miss her sweet little smile when I turn her over to the child to play with.

The first time I fired up Baby Pals, it was time to design my baby. I was pleased to see that it's possible to have more than one baby going in the game at a time. It makes it much easier for my daughter and me to share the cartridge. I got to choose my baby's gender. From there I picked skin tone from nine options. There are head and belly sliders to adjust how chubby or slender a baby you want. You can adjust the nose and eye shape with sliders, and then there are nine choices of eye colors. Finally, I got to name the baby — welcome, Lissy. I learned that I adopted her at the tender age of six months old.

The tutorial runs throughout the game, which is very helpful in a game designed for the younger set. Victoria does the tutorial, and she tells you that you might remember her from Purr Pals. I didn't, but if you remembered her and missed her, she's back.

As with any baby, Lissy is a bottomless pit of need. I tap the pacifier in the upper left corner of the screen to check which needs are most urgent at any given time. The main areas are clean, food, play, sleep and teach. The status also tells me how many hearts I've earned. Since hearts are currency in Baby Pals, this is a reasonably important number. On the other hand, she has an adorable laugh and a little smile all her own, and I find myself wanting to make her happy. At times you'll get an "ah" on the screen. If you coo into the mic, you earn extra hearts. Initially, in my grouchiness, I refused to do it at all. Grudgingly, I started "ah-ing" on cue. Now I find myself doing it when I don't have to — just because she did something cute.

All of the things you'll do in Baby Pals, except the actual shopping and dressing, are different minigames. Cleaning the baby can be either a bath or a diaper change. The bath has you first soap the baby, then rinse and then dry her off. Everything is done using the stylus and the touchscreen. I love how she sparkles at the end of the bath. Now that's a clean baby. Diapering is multiple steps, too — just like a real baby. I have to say, it bothered me at first that the diapering broke some of the modern diapering rules, but since it's an odorless process on the DS, I'm willing to overlook such things. Basically you open the two diaper pins by tapping them, drag the diaper to the trash, get a wipe and clean the dirty spots and then throw away the wipe, powder the rash spots, put on a new diaper (hope you stocked up on them at the store), and then redo the diaper pins on the clean diaper. All of this is done against the clock, but there's a pretty generous time limit. At least this baby isn't going to stick her hand in the poop or try to roll off the changing table. (Just an FYI, each bath takes a clean diaper, even if you've just changed the baby's diaper. You'll need a lot of diapers.)

Food also is a multipart process. You'll need to prepare food from one of your recipes (and you can buy more at the store). The recipes are kind of like Cooking Mama Light. They're easy enough for a child to do but still take a few steps to accomplish, like cutting up vegetables by sliding the stylus or tapping colored buttons on the blender to puree the food. Feeding the baby starts fairly easy and then gets slightly more complex. Initially, you scoop up a bite and just wait for her to open her mouth. Give her a bite and then scoop that other little bit from her chin and give it to her. You feed her three times and win some hearts. As she gets older, she gets a little more resistant. You have to time it just right and then entertain her by tracing dots with the stylus to get her to open her mouth. I love that she is visibly tracking my movement with the stylus before she opens her mouth.

Sleeping is one minigame that just increases in difficulty as you go. You have a little sheep that you guide across the screen. You only have three sheep to begin with and just need to avoid obstacles. At this point, I have four sheep to move, more obstacles and am up to two wolves to avoid. You want to succeed at this activity, or your baby will have a nightmare. You'll know she's having a nightmare because while you play the sheep game on the touchscreen, you see her sleeping with a little thought-bubble of her dream in the top screen.

There are a few different play activities. You can tickle the baby, play patty-cake, play peek-a-boo or play with any toys you've bought at the store. Just be fun and engaging and you should be fine. You'll be able to round out your toy collection with stuffed animals (stuffies), dolls, rattles and balls as you earn more hearts and can afford to buy them.

The teach mode is interesting and not one that you direct. When you meet whatever criteria (and the baby reaches a certain virtual age), the teach button sparkles to let you know you have a teaching moment. I started with teaching the baby her colors. After that, I teach her animal sounds. I'm currently working on teaching Lissy to crawl. This one seems to be a little trickier for me — getting the little ball for her to follow held just right, but she's really cute when it works. Eventually, it looks like I'm going to teach her body parts and how to walk. My, how time flies.

You'll find shopping at the store is very straightforward. Tap the item you want to buy and then tap the shopping cart. You can buy only one item at a time, but other than with diapers, you only really need one of any given item. You can buy diapers in different patterns. They're cute. Wait until you see the flame job. There is a small variety of toys to choose from. You don't need that many toys since you are the baby's main toy. There are different outfit options — and some are available as the baby gets older. I start with onesies and get options for shirts, pants, skirts, dresses, costumes, hats and shoes. The bee costume is interesting — and unlike my real daughter at that age, my virtual baby seems quite happy to play dress up.

Normally, I am not one for simulation games. I have enough to do taking care of a real daughter and dog without caring for virtual versions. Once I got past my initial resistance with Baby Pals, however, I've enjoyed it. I wouldn't play it every day, and it's not something I'm going to play for long stretches of time, but it's something I can see myself coming back to. The developers did a wonderful job capturing the sounds and mannerisms of babies. Yes, the crying sounds are all too real, but the laugh and happy sounds are pretty real, too. I like seeing my little Lissy develop over time. Initially, I thought the game might have been dreamed up as a deterrent to teen pregnancy, but it's not that at all. This baby is charming and responds well to reasonable care. She's cute and engaging, but she's not going to throw you any curveballs — completely unlike reality.

Now that I've rambled at length, I suppose I should wrap things up. Bottom line is that I found this particular virtual "pet" to have far more charm than most. I think this is a nice DS game for the youngster that likes taking care of her (or his) baby doll but is ready for some minigames in the process. If you like babies at all (or don't think you like them but surprisingly really do), I think you'll enjoy some time spent with Baby Pals.