The Sims 2: Pets

Pets are such a fixture of human life that it’s a little surprising that Maxis only gets around to them on the fourth expansion to The Sims 2. Maybe SimCollies are just that much harder to animate.
The pets come in many breeds and sizes and, like your SimPeople, can be customized at the start. You can make a golden retriever with stubby legs if you choose. Cats get the short end of the stick, visually speaking, but make up for it by being much easier to take care of.
What you’ll quickly learn is that pets require a huge expenditure of time and money. Want to start with a dog? Well, you can’t skimp on the tub anymore, since you’ll need that to clean the sloppy beast. And prepare to replace furniture, because Rover will chew on and destroy beds, sofas, and chairs. Plus, it costs 10 simoleons a day to keep the dog fed. (Pets don’t die of starvation, but you will get animal services knocking on your door to take the animal away.)
The addition of career tracks for your pets is a nice little frill. Since they only need to learn tricks to advance in status, your pet will rise through the ranks of its job much more quickly than your Sim. The idiot dog that keeps digging up the yard could enter show biz and be pulling SimTimmy out of a SimWell before the master has left the entry level.
Like every Sims expansion, Pets throws itself in your face from the moment you start play. Your Sim’s every thought in the early stages will be about animals. He or she will want to adopt every stray that enters the yard, or to teach the cat new tricks. Before long, these aspirations get blended with the usual eating, self-improvement, and woo-hoo fare. Pets make it easier to keep the fun and social scores up, but they can be very demanding of your all too precious time. And pity the poor Sim who falls in love with someone their kitten hates.
Pets has none of the transformative gameplay of the Open for Business or University expansions, but the computerized animals have a way of humanizing their masters, rounding out the life-cycle in a game that already features aging, schooling, and death. Besides, with so many things for a Sim to worry about, isn’t it relaxing to go to the park and play fetch?

This article originally appeared in Computer Games Magazine #192