The Sims 2 Pets Review

The makers of the Sims series are just not satisfied with what they have developed till date and are on the look out for developing something which is even more entertaining as well as immersive. Thus, to add a bit to their satisfaction EA and Maxis have come out with their 11th part of the series and a 4th part to the Sims 2 sequel which is The Sims 2 Pets. Yes, the word ‘Pets’ adds to the newness of this expansion pack which is solely devoted to pet creation, to their management and so on and so forth.

To begin with let us go back and understand what Sims is really about. The Sims series involves creating your house in your friendly neighborhood and choosing a single member or a whole family of members. Once this is done then you have to manage your family life where you can do almost everything from looking after the house to going to work and so many other things as you would do in your normal life. Thus with Sims you can live in a virtual world where there are days and nights and life moves ahead with all the exciting daily chores to be done. The latest in the series is the Sims 2 Pets which is equipped with better graphics than its predecessors and is even more entertaining for all the Sims fans.

Here the collection of pets includes dogs, cats, hamsters and birds out of which dogs and cats are the main features of the game.

You can create various breeds of cats and dogs. Some of the dog breeds you will find include Collie, Boxer, Beagle, Dalmatian, German shepherd, Chow Chow and many more small and large breeds. Persian, British Shorthair, Norwegian Forest and Siamese are some of the cats you can pick from. After you have selected your breed, you can customize your pet’s appearance. Fur can be long and wavy, curly or short and you can combine several different layers of different colors for any part of the body. You can end up with some really weird fur patterns if you try. Then there are body and face modifiers, and you can adjust everything from nose to ears, stomach, neck, tail and eyes (including eye colors). You can create your own unique breed by altering a pet’s features, and you can cross-breed them in game as well. Thus by cross-breeding a pet like half cat and half dog you will almost be amazed by the way it behaves. You can also add any color to its eyes like one eye blue and one eye yellow thus making it less of a pet and more like an alien.

You can also specify the behavior of your pet. For example, you can select your pet to be aggressive or friendly, active or lazy, one who eats anything or one who is very fussy. There is a happy medium for each of these personality traits, and it is funny to see how the pets react to things according to their personality. Once I started my game I created a German shepherd including its personality and all. I was amazed to see how it behaved exactly like a real pet would, from following you, to barking when you are eating something in front of it. I could spend hours just watching its behavior and how my virtual self and my virtual wife would interact with them. The hugging, the petting, the finger playing, the barking, it’s something I’m very familiar with and it’s just delightful to see it happening in game as it does in real life, just that I don’t have a wife accompanying me…lol. Anyways, the main feature in this game is the interaction with your pets. Here you can spend hours playing with them, hugging them and even teaching them how to behave. You can also teach them tricks like rolling over the ground. Thus it is really amazing to see such interaction. Those with pets in their houses would love to play this game even more and then compare themselves and their interaction with their real pets. You can also create pet stores and pet adoption centers in community lots, you can have cats and dogs but also small pets such as birds and hamsters. Although there are no pet competitions and judges to impress, now you can go as far as trying to find a job for your pet in three career paths. And to add to the aliens and vampires that make your neighborhoods so exciting, you will now have to watch out for werewolves. Yes, a job for your pet does sound very interesting and exciting as your pet can add to your family income even though it is not that high but still getting a paycheck from your pet is a pretty awesome thing.

I did not find any major performance issues though the games graphics are pretty decent enough and even the sound is not that good with all the various types of noise coming out from your pets. The game takes time to load though. However one major drawback of this game is that it’s just like any other Sims game with only the addition of pets and their management. What I expected from an expansion pack was missing in this game. There are no new clothes at all, very few new objects (of which all revolve around the pets), and no new external area for Sims to visit. Although the pets are cool and useful enough, there’s just not enough you can do with them. Pet toys and collars are very few in numbers, and once a pet is fully trained, it really doesn’t serve any purpose other than to be sold.

To conclude, this game is good in the sense that it has a good level of interaction and even the graphics are decent but the gameplay is not so appealing. I strongly recommend this game for those who are familiar with the earlier sequels of the Sims series and not to forget, for all the gamers who are pet lovers.