Posts with tag pets
Bury the Shovelware: Petz Dogz Fashion
E308: Apartment Pets shining on the tiny screen
In any case, squint at the above video for admittedly pretty footage of Apartment Pets, and hope that it might turn out to be better than sucky.
Gallery: The Sims 2: Apartment Pets
Do the Pet Shop Monogatari dance
The two, with Yamasato be-dog-suited and Shizu-chan dressed in the garb of the game's pet shop proprietress, star in a cute demonstration video of Monogatari's gameplay. In the other two videos found in the official Pet Shop Monogatari site's Gallery area (look for their smiling faces!), the team performs a Pet Shop Monogatari-themed song and dance (to the tune of "Camptown Races").
In case you're like us and tempted to sing and dance along to the "Wan Nyan Buu Taisou" ("Woof Meow Oink Exercise"), we've transcribed and translated the lyrics after the break.
Chi's Sweet Home is very sweet indeed
Chi's Sweet Home is a manga and anime series about a lost kitten who gets adopted by a loving family. Interchannel-Holon is turning it into a heartbreakingly cute DS game that combines comic-style storytelling and graphical text adventuring with adorable and weird minigames. Depending on the date, different minigames will be available, ranging from throwing a ball for Chi to ... kitten sumo? It also includes the requisite interactivity, allowing you to pet, feed, and otherwise care for little Chi.It's easy not to love the soulless, polygonal Nintendogs, but Chi's face could easily sway even the most stalwart pet-game hater. This isn't a standard pet game, in any case -- it's an adventure game starring a pet.
Animals in Paradise, again
Nintendo attracts cute animals like nobody's business. If it isn't Nintendogs, it's Animal Crossing. If it isn't that, it's this. And if it isn't any of those -- it's Animal Paradise 2. As if pets aren't celebrated enough in video games, we need to give them a paradise. How about Blogger Paradise 2?The original game isn't even out in North America yet, and the release for AP2 only mentions a European release date. That's Q2 2009, a long time from now, and an even longer time for the rest of the world. The game focuses on managing a park (read: paradise) filled with an array of Hanadeka animals. That's way too much cute for any one person to take, so waiting a while before it comes out is probably good for the heart.
[Via press release]
What is the deal with these Apartment Pets?
Off the top of our head, here's a quick list of questions we immediately asked after noticing several odd details with this The Sims 2: Apartment Pets cover:
- What are those lines on the woman's pants? We swear to Pete, those better not be some damn convertible pants. It is 2008, lady. You should know better.
- Why is she walking around the building's hallways, puppy in hand, teasing kittens with toys?
- Is that cat on the bottom right corner cuddling with the PEGI rating? This might be the only creature in the world who has actually taken a liking to the unsightly box.
- Why didn't this guy block the door when he opened it to grab the morning paper? He could have prevented this gang of animals from spilling out of his apartment.
- Is that stoic rabbit doing the shoulder lean?
Gallery: The Sims 2: Apartment Pets
Continue reading What is the deal with these Apartment Pets?
Take this, animal-hating landlord
We've already seen The Sims get portable with pets, but now it's time to move those animal-loving sensibilities into trendy, high-rise apartments. Getting very specific with Sim titles these days, EA has announced The Sims 2: Apartment Pets for the DS. Don't leave the penthouse window open for Fido to go barrelling out.Apartment Pets features a bunch of different animals, including cats, dogs, hamsters, rabbits and snakes. Question - can you let the snake loose in the loft with all the other furry critters? Can the snake be a King Cobra? Funny if possible, but highly unlikely.
You can run your own pet spa, and interact with fellow upstart professionals who fill their lives with a bunch of wildlife. It'll be just like Seinfeld, only Jerry is a nonchalant house cat while Kramer is the wacky next-door macaw.
Apartment Pets is scheduled for an August 28 release, and you can check out the first images in the gallery. We urge you to pay attention to your real pets for a while before this one comes along. They don't want some hot-shot hamster stealing the limelight.
Gallery: The Sims 2: Apartment Pets
Monster Rancher DS returns for another season
Still, Tecmo must have done okay in Japan, because they've announced another one for this August. Monster Farm DS 2 keeps the same input systems as before, but adds a character input system of some kind, that will allow players to write Japanese or Chinese characters in order to generate monsters.
That's neat and all, but having gameplay be so dependent on kanji just makes it even harder to localize.
Pet Shop Story: Taito's other game
Last year, Taito announced that they were supporting the DS in a big way, revealing Arkanoid DS, The Legend of Kage 2, and Exit DS to go with Cooking Mama 2. Then shortly afterward, they unveiled Space Invaders Extreme and ... this. Pet Shop Story DS is the only one of Taito's TGS games that has yet to be released in Japan, and it is the one that gets by far the least attention.Pet Shop Story, a sequel to a Game Boy franchise, puts players in charge of -- you guessed it -- a
Pet Shop Story also features the same totally cute character design style as Cooking Mama. The apron-wearing mother even bears a striking resemblance to the Mama we know and don't understand.
Cats remain hard to please in Yume Neko DS
As if any further evidence were required, Yume Neko DS proves that cats are These new screens from Dengeki also reveal more on the game's interior design mode, as well as showcasing a few of the sixty breeds the game will feature (happily, this blogger's favorite is included). So, will Yume Neko DS provide the longevity that the otherwise excellent Nintendogs lacked? Probably not, but hey, look: cute widdle kittens.
Yume Neko DS: Cat-approved
Not only do the pictures demonstrate the staff's acceptance of Yume Neko DS into their environment, you can also see the promotional materials available at the cafe. Mostly, however, Famitsu took pictures of the cuddly bunch just hanging out and being adorable. Also there are a few screens, if, for some reason, you'd want to see those.
Yume Neko DS promoted to cat lovers
The Tokyo cafe has 18 friendly cats (and one dog) "on staff" to hang out and play with cafe customers. It is frequented by people whose apartments or busy lifestyles make a cat of their own impossible. Or people who just really like cats. From March 26th to May 6th, those cat enthusiasts will all receive a Yume Neko DS postcard and seals upon entering Calico, which will be decorated in a Yume Neko DS theme and will play the game's music.
This is how you do a trailer with no gameplay footage
We vaguely remember Sega's Yume Neko DS to be some kind of Nintendog-esque virtual cat game. At this point, we want to buy it right now, because Sega's trailer is perfect. Except for the whole not one second of gameplay being shown bit. But is the actual game going to be better than cute kittens?
That's right, instead of showing off the game's graphics or features, Sega just created a video of four and a half minutes of cute kittens. We support the adoption of the "kitten footage" style for more game trailers -- we'd rather stare at kittens than know what games are about. Mew!
Pet Pals boxart designer unfamiliar with humans
The troubling thing about this is that it probably would have been cheaper just to take pictures of whoever happened to be around instead of going to the trouble to render these subhumanoids, and the game is already full of 3D renders of animals. So they unnecessarily modeled humans, and also unnecessarily photographed animals.
Show these IQ Breeder screens to your cat
We think IQ Breeder is our new obsession. We can't help but approve of the insane premise behind the game-- blending Nintendogs and Brain Age to create an unfathomably weird training game in which you perform brain training exercises to increase the IQ of a virtual pet. The new screens at Famitsu show some of the games that you and your "friend" can play together in the interest of boosting its fake IQ. And as for those pets, you can choose a dog, a cat, a pig, or one of four types of turtles!The games range from math problems to rhythm games, as well as classic distractions like mazes. One of the math games involves solving equations to win a race, like in the Atari 2600 game Math Gran Prix. Our favorite game, however, is the cat-picture jigsaw puzzle, because it looks like developer MegaHouse actually went to the trouble of making a 3D model of the same cat that appears in the sample puzzle. We hate puzzles, but we love cat pictures!
