SIMS 2 PETS FULL
SIMS 2 PETS PC
SIMS 2 PETS TV

Giving your dog some much needed exercise doesn't just involve walking up and down the street outside your home, hoping that someone will walk past, think you are cool and interesting and want to be your friend (although at least that happens more in the game than in real life).

SIMS 2 PETS TV

After all, someone has to be the next TV star, and why can't your dog be the one to inform others that Timmy has, once again, fallen down the well? You can teach them tricks, take them for walks, and they can even get jobs, just like your human Sims. But then, how much fun can you get out of watching a bird in a cage? No, the dogs and cats are the real fun pets, as in real life. If you're a dog or cat lover, then you'll find a range of options to rival those that the humans get, but other animals only get a small number of pre-set looks to choose from. The customisation features for the humans are their usual excellent selves, but they're slightly more of a mixed (pet-food) bag for the pets. Watching a Johnny Random set himself on fire and then pee all over the kitchen floor just isn't the same as seeing your ex-girlfriend do it. The game is, after all, much more fun when it's populated by hideous caricatures of people you know. It's a nice option, although we suspect that people who go for the easy route will end up quitting after a while and creating their own Sims anyway.

Rather than having to design and build your characters and houses from scratch, you can move into a pre-existing house, with the option of kicking out the existing residents, or turning up and moving in with them like some sort of often-mentioned but never seen relative in an Australian soap opera. The Sims 2 Pets tries to make things easier for the newcomers right from the off. Should either of you pick up this version? To which the definitive answer is (look away if you don't want the ending spoiled for you) probably, and maybe.

Thus, there are two different groups being targeted here: those who have never played The Sims 2, and those who own the original.

SIMS 2 PETS FULL

The console versions aren't expansion packs, but rather full games. However, this is the PS2 version, and thus is an entirely different kettle of, er, pet fish.

SIMS 2 PETS PC

Now, if this were the PC version of the game we'd just be concerning ourselves with those of you out there who already own The Sims 2 (which, judging by the sales figures, is most of you). And since no-one has ever accused EA of letting go of a sellable idea when they could release it again and again and again (and again, but with nicer textures), we get the rather more prosaically named 'Pets', this time based on The Sims 2. Back in the dim and distant days of the original The Sims, EA released a version of the game where you could give your Sims pets, and gave it the quite pun-tastic title of 'Unleashed'.

Sims 2 pets