Nintendogs

Oh, Nintendogs. I wanted to love you forever, but, alas, 'twas not to be...

After I got given my DS, this was one of the first games I purchased. There was a lot of hype about it at the time, and it was among the games that Nintendo pushed the most when the DS Lite was released. I decided to buy the version with dachshunds.

The gameplay model is quite simple: After you pick a puppy, you feed it, walk it, bathe it, and train it. Over and over and over and over again.

I think the easiest way to do this review is to write a pros and cons list.

PROS:
-If you buy a certain version of the game, i.e., the one with dalmatians, that doesn't mean you can only raise dalmatians. Each game has a default group of puppies, and you can actually unlock more through meeting other dogs on your walks. Or, if you have a friend with a copy of Nintendogs, you can wirelessly connect and meet their virtual canines, which will sometimes lead to unlocking a new breed. If I remember correctly, I believe you can have up to five dogs, but you can only have three in your house at any given time; the other two have to be in the kennel. Of course, if you decide that one dog is just not your cup of tea, you can send it to the pound—delete it, in other words.

-You can name your puppy whatever you want to, and when you train it to know its name, it will only respond to your voice. Same with commands like "sit" or "stay", etc.

-While you're on walks, you will sometimes come across little gift boxes. If your doggy picks it up, sometimes it contains a toy or an article of clothing for it to wear, or a clock that you can use to customize the clock on your screen within the game.

-The most exciting part of the game ("exciting" being a relative term) is the contests you can enter your dog in. When you go on a walk, you have the option of stopping at the park and training your puppy to catch a frisbee, or stopping and training it to run through an obstacle course. After practising for a little while, you can then go and enter the actual contests and win money. You can also train your dog's obedience at home, and then enter an obedience trial.

-You can use the money you win to buy items at the store, such as food, shampoo, hairbrushes, toy, collars, etc. By the way, you have to buy different shampoos and hairbrushes for certain dogs, based on whether they're short-haired or long-haired.
You can also use your money to upgrade your home to different styles, which is kind of fun.

CONS:
-You are doing the same thing over and over again. There is not enough variation to keep a serious gamer interested. It's extremely easy to get your dog trained up to the highest level for the contests, and once you do, buy all of the house upgrades, and buy as much food/shampoo/treats as you can hold in your inventory, there's nothing to spend your money on. It just keeps accumulating and you can't do anything with it, hardly. And once you've taken your dog for its walk and picked up its poop for the 4 billionth time, your heart starts to die a little bit.

-Some of the puppies are just dang ugly. There's no saving them. I would never adopt certain breeds of puppies just for this reason.

-You can't really play this game properly in public, because if you want to get the most out of it, you're required to speak out loud to your pet. I'll be darned if you're gonna see me yelling "sit!" at an electronic device in my doctor's waiting room.

Ultimately, this game was designed for a younger (and most likely female) gaming audience. While it's momentarily amusing, it's probably going to be a game that sits in your DS case gathering dust.