Nintendogs is a pet simulator, giving the user up to three dogs from 18 different breeds to train, compete and interact with. It's an amazing showcase for the unique abilities of the DS: using touch control, you can interact with your dog(s) in ways not possible on any other system. Through voice recognition, you can command your dog to perform tricks that you've taught if before. With your wireless connection, you and your dogs can interact with the dogs of your friends, of even complete strangers!
The game is very open-ended. There's no Game Over unless you stop playing. your dog will never die or grow beyond the puppy stage. It'll just get really dirty, forget his/her tricks and be mad at you for a little bit. There is alot to do: the aforementioned trick teaching, playing with balls, frisbees, bones, etc, accessorising your dog with bows, collars and more, taking a walk around town, entering in various competitions, and just hanging out and running around. You could just spend your time petting him for hours. Officially, the game is goal-less, though technically you are given a score in Trainer Points, which is a value of how well trained your dog is and how much it loves you.
The graphics are really stunning for the DS. The models are relatively high-poly, and the animations they use are almost frighteningly realistic. It may even disturb some of you...
The game isn't perfect though. The voice recognition is fussy, working perfectly sometimes, and acting really buggy at others. The slightest change in inflection from your original voice command can cause massive confusion in your dog. Another disappointment was the incompleteness felt in bark mode, which is how you can interact with other owner's dogs. Rather than actually interacting in a shared arena, the dogsare simply cloned in each other's systems, and interact with the other dog seperate from each other, taking different input from each DS.
Nintendogs is far from hardcore. It's an attempt from Nintendo to bring "non-gamers" to the system, and from all accounts, it's succeeded. It's easy to get into, and fun to play, dispite some frustrating elements.
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