23. The bare minimum: The Sims 2 Pets (Nintendo DS)

 

Of all the games that I had picked up in the bundle of Nintendo DS games that started this blog, The Sims 2: Pets was the game I had the least interest in actually playing. Despite that, I was at least somewhat curious as to what sort of game it would actually be. Would it be a slice of a standard Sims game, a Nintendogs clone, or a mini game collection?

It's... kind of all of them, albeit not in a fun way. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Sims is a series I only have a cursory familiarity with. I've never played any of the games, but it's one of those series that as someone who has played games for over 30 years now (oh no). From cultural osmosis, I understand that series typically involves taking care of a collection of Sims (the human analogues) by creating houses for them to live in and managing aspects of their life to give them a fulfilling life. However, you have very little direct control of your Sims, just the environment they live in. Like a Tamagotchi, but a bunch of little weirdos with diamonds over their head.

Also, there's something about using pools for nefarious purposes that is spoken of in hushed tones.

Monster Factory is probably the most I've been exposed to the series, but since Griffin and Justin intentionally break the game wide open, it's unlikely to be reflective of the typical experience.

Sims 2 Pets starts with a character creator for the player character, and immediately the graphical shortcomings become apparent. Given the modest power of the Nintendo DS and the typical effort EA put into games for the system, I wasn't expecting much in terms of the graphics, but this seems very much hamstrung by the choice of graphical style, something more cartoonish would have come across far better (something EA eventually did learn with their MySims series). To demonstrate this, here is the character creation screen:

I'll give them this: at least they let me represent myself as a husky gentleman

Yikes. Regardless, after creating my Sim, I created a pet for them. I had hoped to be able to recreate the family dog, Daisy. She's a Kelpie crossed with a Corgi, and she rules

LOOK. AT. HER.

Unfortunately, while Sims Pets does have the ability to make hybrid pets, neither Corgi nor Kelpie options exist. And so I decided to make a Monster Factory style monster. No middle sliders, baby!

During the entire creation process, a single very poorly looped song plays. Given the character creations process is never a fast one, it becomes irritating fast. I sure hope it's not the only song in the entire game!

It is, in fact, the only song in the entire game. AHHHH.

After creating my Sim and their pet, the game began, and it became very clear just how much of a Sim game this is. Despite the game initially seeming to have a pets focus, the game first spends time explaining all the ways in which the main character needs to be managed to function, and it turns out that no, the human is the Tamagotchi still, not the pets. Six categories for the Sim need to be managed: hunger, energy, comfort, hygiene, social and...bladder.

After learning how to shower and... relieve myself, my Sim was alerted that there is a customer at my clinic. Turns out, dudes house is also the veterinary surgery. Not great work life balance! Moving at an excruciatingly slow pace, and struggling with a camera that pans first too slow and then too fast, my vet made his way to the front door.

I had assumed that this client would have the pet I designed at the start of the game, but no, it was a completely different dog. The client had brought their dog in because they had a strange odor. Moving to the diagnosis table, the first series of minigames are presented. These each boil down to extremely basic minigames where the touchscreen is used to tap the pet, alternating between petting it to calm it down, and diagnosing it, which makes it immediately freak out and run around the table, yelping. For instance, the Stethoscope freaks the pet out as you hold it to the head of the pet as it runs in circles. I don't think the developers know what a stethoscope even does!

However, this did not help diagnose the pet - because it turns out the pet was just needing a wash. With that diagnosis, the pet was checked in to the clinic overnight. This pet was placed in a kennel, which upon opening I found the dog I created at the start of all this! There was literally no in game introduction to my Sims pet, it just appears in the kennel with no explanation as to what can be done with it.

All the pets are kept in this sealed blue metallic pod. There's no windows, it's cramped, there's nothing in there to keep them entertained. And this is where they remain unless they are being used in a mini game.

At this point I noticed several of my Sim gauges had dropped. It was only 1pm in game, and my Sim already needed a shower and something to eat. This might seem reasonable, but the speed that the game runs through the day means you are constantly micromanaging your Sims needs, while also trying to treat the pets. After showering and failing the cooking minigame, I sent my Sim back to try and treat the patient.

The treatment of the pets is effectively the same minigames as the diagnosis in a different hat, where the treatments stress the pet out and thus need to be managed with petting them to improve their mood. With the pet shampooed and showered, it was returned to the distressing blue box.

Shortly after this, the day ended, and my Sim started the next day with almost all their gauges empty. Their hygiene was so low they had stink lines, their social was so low they were depressed, and they were extremely hungry. Given the terrible minigame to make food, I chose to ignore that.

Shortly after, they collapsed from hunger.

I shut my DS, if only to get a break from the same looping song that I had been dealing with for almost 20 minutes now. And then, for the second time in this blog series, my DS dropped on the ground and the game was shot out of the cartridge slot.

The Nintendo DSi was the last indestructible Nintendo system.

I begrudgingly started back up again, but instead just used one of the save files the previous user had left on the cart. The first I tried had stopped playing after the first day, which I found very relatable. The other file had played for about 70 in game days, so at the very least someone must have had fun with the game.

This save file showed how little that the game evolves. The house layout was slightly different, albeit with no new rooms, and there were some new recipes that could be made in the same terrible minigame.

Also the Sim had a full bladder and immediately peed her pants.

There was one other part of the game, the local park. Walking my Sim over there, there was the option to sit on a bench, or walk to a fenced off area to engage in the only thing that can be done with the pets aside from diagnosis and treatment: playing fetch. This is the one part taken from Nintendogs, and is extremely limited.

wikiHow art never fails to disapoint

The Sims 2 Pets for Nintendo DS is a terrible videogame. It's boring, ugly, and has a single awful song in the soundtrack. Also, it sold over 2 million copies. And there was a sequel.