The Ladies Get Some Payback in Hey Baby

Summer and catcalls go hand-in-hand, which means it’s the perfect time to unleash Hey Baby, a new videogame that finally gives the ladies a chance to get some full-auto payback from all the foul-mouthed sleazebags on the street.

Are you tired of your milkshake bringing all the boys to the yard? Maybe you should think about trading in that tasty dairy beverage for something a little more practical. Like an M4A1 carbine, for instance. Not a practical option in real life, perhaps, but thanks to the magic of videogames and the newly released Hey Baby, you can get the next-best thing in the virtual world.

In Hey Baby, gamers will step into the heels of a woman on the streets of the city who just happens to be packing an assault rifle. The presence of the fully-automatic weapon doesn’t seem to be much of a sleaze deterrent, however, as every single man on the street has something stupid to say as he walks by. What’s a poor woman to do? Keep walking and pretend she didn’t hear? Not anymore, sister!

“Street harassment can make women feel uncomfortable or unsafe in their daily lives,” said game creator Suyin Looui. “Cities are such amazing places, and it’s important to create positive interactions in shared public spaces. Hey Baby gives women a space to act out their ridiculous revenge fantasies and to laugh about it.”

Hey Baby is an amusing if somewhat bizarre idea that’s hamstrung by a single, fatal flaw: It’s an absolutely god-awful game. A version that looks like a bad Quake 2 mod and sounds about as pleasant as a fart through a bicycle horn is available online, while a “premium” release is listed for sale but has apparently sold out “due to popular demand.” A press release describes it as a “playful and provocative” game that’s “based on hundreds of real stories, collected from women around the world,” but the reality is that if I was a high school computer science teacher and one of my students turned this is as a project, I’d immediately fail hm and very likely hit him with something, too.

Honestly, I don’t even know if this is supposed to be serious or if it’s some kind of We Pray-style internet gag. If it is serious, then someone needs to remind the developer that in order for a teaching game to have value, it actually has to be half-assed playable; and if it’s not, well, it ain’t funny, honey. Check it out for yourself at heybabygame.com.