Review: The Sims 2 Pets
Score: 49
Oh dear, oh dear. How a mightly franchise (Sims) has fallen. The idea of managing a group of people (or in this case a vet, customers and lots of animals) to see how they develop has always been an interesting one, but it's brought far too tightly into line with this title.
Each sick pet that's brought in needs to be diagnosed and treated (and trained), with your vet earning money as they go along. But you're spoon fed what to do rather too much and, to be frank, anybody over the age of 10 will find the game boring.
Unfortunately, those under the age of 10, while not being bored to the same extent, will be put off by the lowish quality of the polygon graphics of the animals themselves. Whereas Nintendogs's puppies were utterly photorealistic, cute and genuine in their movements, the cats and dogs here are distinctly ugly and nowhere near as convincing.
There's a reasonable sim engine under the hood of Sims 2 Pets, but I'm not sure anyone will ever really get far enough to play it through. Life's too short and, anyway, there's your Nintendog to train for the latest trials.
So, it's not all bad. The sounds are pretty good and the 3D rendered world is impressive (to a programmer like me, anyway). But it's a title that doesn't really hit home in any one area and is unlikely to sell in the word-of-mouth volumes that Nintendog managed.