I’ll admit, writing this review was a little daunting. I mean, how exactly am I supposed to give my
opinion of a non-game game? Well, being
a closet Harvest Moon fan helps a little, but there’s still a sizable stretch
between “farm sim” and “puppy sim.” So,
I’ll give it the old college try...
Nintendogs,
the big N’s latest unconventional title for their so-called developer system,
initially defies defining. Many people
who see me playing it on the bus or after work say, “Oh, that’s like those
Tomogotchi things, right?” Well, they’re
half-right. Nintendogs takes the
embryonic pet-simulator concept introduced with such early tries like
Tomogotchi and Giga-pet, and then hyper-develops it. Nintendogs is in essence what those
primordial sims were trying to accomplish, and for one big reason: Nintendogs
is based on a real animal, something we’re all very familiar with.
Let me
explain further. Tomogotchi’s were
popular as a novelty and among quirk-gamers simply because they were new and
different. A blob of grayscale pixels
that roughly resembles a cute little beastie will appeal to the offbeat crowd,
but non-gamers won’t get it. Here again
is Nintendo’s philosophy of broadening the market. They’re expanding an idea with a lot of
promise by marketing it to people who have never
played video games before, and it’s working.
The funny
thing is, I’m as enamored with Nintendogs as my ten-year-old sister is, and I
hope I can explain why in this review. I
have an inkling that it’s because puppies are just one of those things that are
practically irresistible to any human, unless you happen to really hate
dogs. Puppies are adorable, soft, cuddly
and loyal, and I’d better end this sentence before I need to take an insulin
shot. The fact is that Nintendogs
recreates the feel of man’s best friend so accurately, you’ll be instinctually
drawn to these virtual canines as you would a real dog.
Yes, the Nintendogs are noticeably
polygonal. They have data points and
textures like any other 3D representation, and at the end of the day they’re
still stuck in your DS, behind those double screens. But their behavior
is so well done, you’d swear there was a real animal behind those
screens. The actions of these puppies is
as random and dynamic as a real dog’s; they’ll jump up and paw at the back of
the screen when you turn on your DS, like you’ve just come home from work. You feel as if they’re genuinely happy to see
you.
The
environments are somewhat surreal; a white glow permeates every area and gives
them all a comforting, serene atmosphere.
But the way the dogs interact with their surroundings is remarkably
realistic, whether you’re chilling at home, at the park or out on a casual
walk. These places all have a double
purpose, as they are training grounds for the contests you can enter your dog
into. For instance, the park is great
for tossing the frisbee around, your house is better suited for teaching
tricks, and the gymnasium is exclusively for agility exercises.
While the
scenery is rather unrealistic in some ways, the objects in this world are all
very real. I have to hand it to
Nintendo; the physics engine in this game is so spot on, and yet so subtle at
the same time, you’ll hardly notice it. And that’s the way it should be. Playing fetch with the tennis ball or tug of
war with the pull rope should all feel completely natural, so that you forget
that you’re playing a game. And it
does. Of course, your pet does require
some virtual maintenance to keep healthy, such as feeding, cleaning, and
exercise, but another beauty of this game is that your puppy will never
die. They may get surly and take off for
a while if you neglect them, but they remain eternally youthful, never develop
debilitating diseases, never run into the street and get hit by a car...it’s
all the fun of a puppy without any of the heartbreak.
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