Jump to navigation
Christmas in Scotchland™
My brief trip to Scotchland™ to see Grandma and my Uncle and Aunt went well. They were having a duty-free-for-all sale at Dixons in Gatwick (or Scotland has now become a seperate country), so I picked up the aforementioned DS (silver version with Mario Kart DS - the other choice was a pink one with
Petz DS Nintendogs) there so I'd have something to do during the quiet moments. Grandma is reasonably well given her various illnesses (and what appeared to be a bad attack of something turned out to be indigestion from eating the nuts in the Christmas Pudding).
I think I've persuaded her that neither myself nor Dad have any musical ability and her worry over which instrument she should buy either of us is akin to worrying which sort of bicycle the fish in the pond need. However, her belief that everyone in the family is a polymath just lacking in opportunity persists and at one point she suggested my Mum has, against all evidence, a wonderful singing voice...
There was, sadly, no snow up there, the closest being the
mist filling the valley in interesting ways. When I got back to London though, I had to drive through a mild snowstorm on the M25 and the snow was actually settling as I arrived back home. It didn't last, though.
I have however collected evidence the human race is doomed.
Posted in General
at 02:14 on Thursday 29 December
by Auz
Comments
Saying Nintendogs is Petz DS is like saying Half-Life 2 is Doom 2004. ;p
Tell that to the gaming press:
“You've got to feel sorry for the creators of the Petz series - all those years spent producing endless pet sims, only for Nintendo to go and nick the idea, do it a whole lot better and make a million billion pounds in the process.”
http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...
Yeah, they're both pet sims, just like Half-Life 2 and Doom are both FPS games.
And both Half-Life 2 and Doom are justly feted for their respective polish and innovation, whereas 10 years of Petz gets ignored and Nintendo is praised for their innovation *and* polish.
I still think you're missing the point. I've played pet simulators before. Nintendogs isn't the same. You've got your little dog inside your little DS, which you can hold in your hands.
You can touch your dog.
You can speak to your dog.
You can hear your dog.
You can watch your dog.
You can feed him, walk him, pet him, play with him, reward him, etc.
He is unhappy when you leave him alone for a long time.
And you can do all this as you take him with you anywhere you go.
He feels more like a real dog than any other pet simulator I've seen. You can't look at each individual feature.. you have to look at the whole package and experience it to really get it, IMO.
I'm not sure how being the whole package stops it being a version of Petz. It might make it a better version (and the GBC versions of Petz got really bad reviews), but beyond that...
Can you touch or speak to your dog in Petz? No. Those two features of Nintendogs ALONE make the game on a whole different level.
Previous pet simulators felt exactly like what they're called - pet SIMULATORS.
Nintendogs feels like a real pet.
There's just no comparison as far as I'm concerned.
“Can you touch or speak to your dog in Petz? No.”
Yes, you can. Petz 4 on the PC had voice recognition. And all the Petz games have allowed you to touch your pets...
If you have one for your PC, presumably so. Given their prices, I don't think they're that common in homes though. But I doubt the game would have been coded to block touch screens if they happened to be available.
Add Comments
You'll need to
register to post comments.
Saying Nintendogs is Petz DS is like saying Half-Life 2 is Doom 2004. ;p