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A Pleasant and Touching Surprise

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 15
Date: October 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I expected the Pets in the new Sims expansion to be fun, and I wasn't disappointed. The surprise is how many new objects and decor items there are. There are a lot new walls and floors that aren't too theme-specific, and will add a lot of good new looks to building new houses. The ability to used partial floor tiles in the floor grids to make patterns is a cool bonus. They even have carpet strips to put between carpeted and tiled floors for an even more realistic look. There are a lot of great furnishings too.

This game is really touching to me because I have been able to make Sim versions of all the beloved pets that I have had through the years. My son and I laughed hysterically at the photo portraits of the cats in the game; they are totally unphotogenic!

I have been disappointed with the Stuff Packs because of the lack of "stuff" in them; not a good value. However, the Pets expansion pack is a GREAT value all around, and I highly recommend it.

Seriously buggy product.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 15 / 21
Date: November 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I like that there are pets, but I do not feel that the expansion is as much fun as the Sims 1 "Unleashed" expansion. I miss the harvestable plants, lizards, and bunnies. The new pet genetics are pretty cool, although I dislike that I cannot make new coat markings or pet accessories.

My first serious complaint is a huge problem with the Create-a-Sim feature. If you make "human" Sims in CAS, then try to add pets to the same family, your Sims will revert to the hideous EA Games face templates. I have to make my Sims families and Pets families separately, then move them into the same lot.

I have also had to turn off aging on any household with a pet, since a Sim entering a new life stage will revert to a EA Games template.

As you may have gathered, I don't like the look of the EA Games Sims at all. I rely heavily on fan-created custom content (custom content is encouraged by EA Games - if you check the EA Games site, you will see that they host a file exchange forum).

Another problem I have encountered is that the game will delete custom content that isn't compatible with Pets, instead of merely letting items exist without the brand-new interactions. I have a medieval-themed neighborhood I can no longer play because I worry that the program will start deleting fan-created items from my lots.

There are further problems: EA glasses now look strange in the game, with serious perspective problems, and rear lenses appearing above forward lenses. I have had Sims randomly start flashing blue. Files have been corrupted, then when I restore them from backup, they appear to be fine.

Since the game is so buggy, I've focused on creating custom content while I wait for EA Games to release a patch. This leads me to my third and largest complaint: BodyShop items - even those cloned from base-game items - are not compatible with earlier versions of the game. I have had to manually edit the code on several files to make them compatible with Pets-free games. I can understand making brand-new items incompatible without the new expansion...but new eye colors? Base-game hair recolors? It's ridiculous, to put it mildly.

I do not recommend buying this expansion until it is fully patched by EA Games. If you use large amounts of fan-created content, you may want to wait for someone to make a batch item fixer.

Great add-on for your Sims 2 experience

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: December 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is great. But in more detail, the thing I like most is the unlimited possibilities in creating pets. Yes, you can only create cats and dogs, but still, you can make it as cute or as ugly as you desire. There are many breeds to choose from if you don't feel like creating one yourself, but you can still choose a breed and edit it. As the gameplay goes, there are many random happenings. One is the random occurences of pets. They don't come right into your house, but if you leave anything valuable outside, say goodbye. There is one really bad dog named Webster in Pleasantview, and man, he makes me wish this game let you have some sort of weapon. But still, it makes it fun to see neighboring dogs to come up and visit. As for new features, you have alot of new technological devices, such as futuristic phones and floors. Another feature is you can call a person and invite the whole household over. A nitpick feature, but it still adds to gameplay. You can also have small pets such as gerbils or birds. You don't have to go to the store to buy these animals, but you rather just go to buy mode and choose the cage and the animal comes with it, with a price. There has been numerous complaints of this game slowing down your computer, but in my case, there hasn't been a problem. I have noticed a couple more lagging moments, but nothing too annoying. Overall, this game adds great depth and alot more random fun to the Sims 2 experience.

Well worth it!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: November 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

My boyfriend got me the expansion for an early birthday surprise and I was thrilled. I'm a big Sims fan and I just love animals so it was a perfect gift. I found customizing the pets fun and easy, though I'm a bit upset that you can't change nose and paw pad colors - My cats are black and gray and both have matching nose and paw pads, but in the Sims 2 Pets they are stuck with pink noses and pads. The tabby striping could have more options too, but again I'm being picky. The selection of breeds, both cats and dogs, is impressive and I like the fact each cat breed is distinct. There could be more pet options like owning turtles, lizards, snakes, frogs, and mice, but the expansion is well done and well worth getting even without those added pets. The careers for your pets are fun and training your pets can be quite amusing. Overall, it is a great expansion to a great game.

The Sims 2 Pets... To Buy, or Not to Buy?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: January 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The Sims 2... one of the most (if not the most) amazing game for the computer ever invented. The Sims 2 Pets... almost identical to the former, with the exception of doggies, kitties, birdies, and creatures that resemble hamters. Yes, the cat/dog life cycle is wonderfully realistic, the sim-animal relationship heart-warming, and the selection of breeds plethoric, but there are no real changes in the game. I personally find this game mildly amusing, but you can't DO anything but have pets. You buy a house, get a job, and raise some kids; the only difference between this expansion pack and the original Sims 2 is that there's an extra mouth to feed.
Teaching your pets right from wrong is a nice touch, though it can get a little annoying to have to drop everything to tell Fluffy not to scratch the furniture or Fido to take it outside. I found my sims not having enough time to themselves, slowly withering away until I finally just got rid of the damn pets.
The one thing that was really useful was the "destroy-all" button, the hammer-shaped tool that lets you dispose of anything without having to switch from wallpaper to lamps to fences. It helps when you've done something horribly wrong and can't delete an object by normal means.
There was also another new tool: octogonal walls. Hmmm... do I hear a voice that says, "totally, utterly, useless????" Yes, octogonal walls are nothing big when it comes to change.
Overall, it's an OK game, it's just a little boring. Maybe some more objects like cars, for instance (the sad truth is that you can only get cars in Sims 2 Nightlife). Funwise, the game is really exciting when you first get it, making breeds, having kittens, buying fun pet furniture, but once that's all done one feels like "OK, now what?", which is a bit disappointing.
I could go on for days complaining, but if you can't live life without screeching, messy pets, then this is the expansion pack for you.

So fun...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: December 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Sims 2 Pets is an exciting change of pace, the pets are very detailed, specific, and adorable. Dogs, or atleast my Sims Dog, was very very easy to train, (if you don't train them, then they will bite the mailman, sleep on your sims beds, pee inside, wrip up furniture, etc.) and its pretty easy to teat your pets tricks, like play dead. (my fave. to watch) I deftinly recommend this great expansion back to anyone.

Worth the price, with a few caveats

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: January 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is an excellent expansion for pet lovers to the original The Sims 2. Dogs and cats are the major pets available, along with their own genetics. However, the pet genetics are not nearly as elaborate as the genetics for the Sims themselves. They also gave us birds and wormrats (EA's version of the hamster). Luckily these do not spread the plague like they did in The Sims 1. Another improvement over The Sims 1 version of Pets (Unleashed) is that dogs now come in two sizes, small and large. Customizing your pets can be easy or quite elaborate as EA gave us pretty good tools to be able to recreate the markings of your favorite real-life pet.

Pets can be trained to use/stay off the furniture, housebreak by litter pan/outdoors, scratch/don't scratch furniture, friendly to strangers/aggressive toward strangers, and several other things to get them to behave the way you want them. They can also be taught tricks such as speak, sit, roll over and play dead. Finally, pets can get jobs and even be promoted, although their career track is much shorter than those of Sims.

One nice feature of this expansion pack is that the pet stores are put into your lot bin so that they can be added to any neighborhood or sub-neighborhood that you already have instead of adding a whole new sub-hood like they did with University, Nightlife, and Open for Business. Stray pets will start wandering the neighborhood as soon as Pets is installed.

No Sim expansion pack would be complete without the addition of some type of monster. Sims 2 gave us aliens, University gave us zombies, Nightlife gave us vampires, Open for business gave us Servos and now Pets gives us werewolves.

Speaking of werewolves, they are supposed to be Sim in the daytime and werewolf at night. But there are some issues with some Sims not losing their hairy features, or losing the hair on part of the Sim but not all of the Sim, or staying hairy even after they have been cured of lycanthropy. Changing into a werewolf also changes the personality of that Sim.

There are quite a few other bugs. There are some issues with the game reporting that no one else can join the household because of a pregnant pet even if the family doesn't have a pet. Some features that were fixed in past patches have been re-broken.

Another feature they included was damage to furniture if a pet scratches or chews it too much. Unfortunately, they didn't think this through. Instead of causing your furniture to look ragged, it causes the furniture to collapse into a pile of dust. Not exactly realistic. One of the bugs that they missed is that a pet can do this to a crib while it is occupied by an infant and then the baby disappears.

But all is not lost. Several Sim fan sites have released fixes for these problems until EA gets around to giving us a patch. These make the game fully playable and enjoyable and best of all, these sites give the fixes away for free.

The bottom line: An excellent expansion, well worth the money if you take some time to download some free fixes to get everything to work right. Otherwise you can either play the game as is (it won't crash, just irritate you) or wait until EA releases a patch.

Loving it!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: October 19, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I love this game. If you are looking to challenge your Sims game then I recommend this. There are so many options to create and design your animals from coat textures, color, structure. I also love the interactions that you can have with your pets. But like I said it is a challenge when you factor in taking care of babies, kids, spouses and pets. Makes the game alot more realistic. I recommed also getting the Prima guide. When I first started playing without it I was clueless but after reading through the guide once I understand the strategies and works of the game. Happy Simming!

A Minor Disapointment In An Otherwise Great Series

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: November 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Admittedly, I was not exactly thrilled at the concept of this EP. I hated Unleased, and was not sure how I would feel about Pets. Of course, like any true Simmer, I bought it. Here is an early review:

Basic Game Play: 3/5
Pets themselves seem to be fine, you are not able to control them, but you can see their needs. The stray walk-bys no longer leave puddles on your lot. The Toddler/pet interaction is probably one of the best features in the game. The Sims Wants and Fears constantly revolving around their pets grows old quickly, as does their obsession with the pet itself. The Commands that can be taught to the pet are also worth a few laughs.

Objects: 4/5
There are quite a few new objects in this game. Obviously, most concern your pets. However, I think they were a little skimpy on the pets' stuff. I do like to Atomic Collection and the new kids room as well.

CAS: 1/5
No new hair, clothes, make-up, etc. They could have at least added some of the Pet Eye Genetics to the Sim Genetic list. This is one of the biggest disapointments in the game. The Pets aspect of CAS is pretty good. You can customize just about every part of their body and layer each item for an even more customized look. This is the lone factor that gets a star in this category.

Build: 5/5
The building objects in this game are the best so far. The only drawback is the octoganal wall. They can only be built as ix1x1x1x1x1x1x1 and cannot be drawn further. The Walls, Floors, Fireplaces, etc are a much needed and welcome addition. Also new, are floor lines, or room dividers. These are simple lines drawn on the floor that allow a large room to be broken up. This is usefull when using multiple walls in floors in a large area.

My overall opinion is that this is the lowest rated of the EP's, but is a welcome additon. For those who liked Unleashed, you'll find this to be your favorite. If you disliked Unleased, you won't be as fond of this games as the others, but it is still enjoyable.

You Love The Sims 2, So Why Not Pets?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: October 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I gotta tell you, I absolutely hate this whole "expansion pack" epidemic going around the video game industry. These people have found a way to make some serious cash off us.

The sad part, as I see it, is that I am witnessing myself dropping the cash like a lemming! I used to wonder what was going through a mosquito's mind as he flew straight into those glowing lamps to get burned alive. I now know.

I totaled up my Sims 2 expenditures. Not including tax, I have dropped about $190 so far on the franchise (the base game, four expansions, and one stuff pack).

Anyway, I bought and played The Sims 2: Pets the other day for $30. (After tax, almost $35.) It is a legitimate expansion pack. The only animals you really get to manipulate are cats and dogs, but there are hamsters and birds to interact with also. (The cats and dogs can be trained and have jobs, etc. The other ones are more for less deep interaction.)

I must say, I am not a huge animal fan (except for dogs), but the way they programmed these animals to operate is quite spectacular. Of course, my girlfriend makes fun of me because she says, "Why don't you just get a real dog and watch them do that in real life?"

My only answer stems from the financial standpoint: "I'd need money for a new house with a big backyard, food and maintenance for the pet, and the desire to keep it alive."

So shy of actually leaving my house and leading a normal life, The Sims 2 franchise has done it again - giving me another reason to live vicariously through lives that don't exist.

Just so you know, the price tag on this expansion won't drop below $20 any time soon, but by then it will have been included in The Sims 2: Complete Edition. So I figure you might as well spend it - you love The Sims 2 too much to be a prudent consumer anymore. I've rationalized that away in my mind already...

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