When Ubisoft came out with Dogz for the GBA last year, I was excited to include this game as part of my youngest son's Christmas presents. I thought it would be a great game for him to play instead of Nintendogs. He'd get all of the fun of having his own puppy without the complexity of having to read or think ahead that Nintendogs required. Unfortunately even a year ago he was smarter than that and he knew that the game he was playing wasn't the same as the one his older siblings played. Happily, this year Ubisoft released Dogz for the Nintendo DS as part of their Petz line of games, and now what had been a game occasionally played has turned into one of the most played games in the house.It is amazing what a difference the touch screen and microphone on the DS makes for a game. And really, those two features are the only difference between the GBA version of Dogz and the DS version. It is still game that requires reading, a lot of reading in fact. But the difference is that after the initial controls are explained, it has been pretty easy to still play the game and interact with your puppy without really having to read the text on the screen. Now let me confess right from the start that I don't quite get the attraction of these games in general. To me it is rather boring to have to repeat the same commands and routine over and over again. But my kids all seem to love it. On a side note this could be because where we live doesn't allow them to have a real dog, so this is as close as they're going to get for a while, but I digress.
So what do you do in Dogz? Well, you do all the stuff you'd normally do with a puppy. You train it to do tricks, starting with simple ones like sit and work up to more complicated ones like shake. You clean up after your puppy, and eventually teach him to use the “potty”. You feed him, you play with him, and in general just, well, do puppy type things. Every now and again you're interrupted by “life” events such as having to eat, or go to bed. Oh, and because you're a kid, you have to go to school. Each of these life events happens through a series of short scenes, usually with something to read that you have to hit the “A” button to advance. It's how time passes in the game, basically. Some time will pass just as the game runs, or as you're working to teach your puppy a particular trick. But in general, most of the hours of the day progress by during the cut scenes.
My kids also enjoy getting out the little remote controlled car from the puppy's toy box and watching the puppy chase it around the living room. I must say that they are much better at this than I am. There is also an office where you can go to use the “computer” in the game to read more about puppy care and training. You save the game at the end of each day when it is time for your little dog to go to sleep. At that point you can also write in your diary, or view photos you've taken through the day. You can also save the game at any time by pressing the “start” button and going to the save menu. As I said earlier, not a whole lot to do as far as I'm concerned, but my kids seem to enjoy the game.
The one thing I do like about the game from a parent's point of view is that the music does change depending on what is happening in the game. At night a soft lullaby plays. The song you'll here most often, of course, is the daytime music when you're just interacting with your puppy. And if your little gamer spends a lot of time just allowing time to slowly progress, it will get annoying after a while. But the background music can be turned off separate from the other sound effects by going in to the options menu, a huge bonus to the game as far as I'm concerned. The graphics are clean and simple, with most of the focus on the bottom screen of the DS. The top screen tells you the day and time of day, and will switch to where your puppy is when you call him, but most of the time all you have to focus on is the bottom screen. It is cartoon style graphics, not realistic style, but my kids don't seem to mind this in the least.
So with that all said, who would we suggest the game for? Anyone in early elementary grades would enjoy it best, we feel. My third grader likes the game, though it isn't one of her favorites. There just isn't enough variety of what to do in the game to keep her interested for long. I'm not sure what they could have added to the game to make one she'd want to play for longer periods of time. My kindergarten becomes frustrated sometimes by all the reading involved, but has discovered that for the most part if he just looks at the visual clues on the screen, he can tell what the game is saying and just press “A” repeatedly to get passed the reading parts. If you're willing to sit down with your preschool aged child and teach them how to get beyond these reading parts, I suspect this would be a good game for them as well. The interface itself is simple, with the use of the touch screen only to bring up menus and the microphone used to call your puppy. Everything else is controlled in the same way that it would be on the GBA, with the arrows moving your character around, and the “A” button doing most of the interaction. If you have a little one who isn't able to have a real puppy of their own and wants to experience what it is like to have a puppy of their own, then this game is a good substitute. Though it progresses slow and they might only pick it up for short periods of time when they do, it is one they will pick up often if they're anything like my kids.
I’ve played computer games since college, addicted first to story type games like Might and Magic. I have 3 children who also love computer games. My oldest son is a typical kid who loves the challenge of pressing the right combination of buttons and levers on a joystick in just the right way to make something happens, and frequently gets frustrated with mom’s slow fingers. ;) We use computers for both education and entertainment, and sometimes even bribery for good behavior.
The “glory days” of computer gaming for me were when games like Spectre Supreme, Pirate’s Gold, the Might and Magic series, the original Prince of Persia… those sorts of games were coming out on a regular basis. Back then I owned a Macintosh and was a die hard Mac fan. I was one of the first in my area to buy an iMac and on it learned the joy of playing games on the internet like daily crossword puzzle and “mind bender” type puzzles. My first online RPG was given to me for Christmas the year EQ was released, and I was hooked from day one. I played EQ for about a year. I started playing DaoC during late alpha testing, and was hooked on it.. well, to be honest I still am. I’ve tried pretty much every MMORPG I can get my hands on, from big names like EQ, to more obscure ones such as Underlight. I’ve been writing for IMGS since the first DaoC guide, and find I love the challenge of learning a game and presenting what I’ve learned (and sometimes my opinions), to other players.
I’m not a very strong player as far as learning PvE or quick reaction times, so I tend to stay away from games where I’m pitted against someone else in a way that requires physical (rather than mental) response. I still enjoy story and puzzle games, and in a way that’s how I still approach online games. I would much rather spend hours working through a quest than 5 minutes in combat against another player. I still get lost in simulation type games, obsessing over them until I’ve gotten them beaten. And I like being able to sit down at the computer when I’ve got less than half an hour and playing through a few levels of a puzzle game. I tend not to like first-person shooter type games, or anything with person to person violence, so I steer away from them unless they are fantasy based settings. All in all, I enjoy computer gaming so much that my life feels incomplete somehow when my computer is down.
