Taking care of pets is hard in real life, so why should anyone complicate things in The Sims 2? Probably for the same reason that "Sim-aholics" create a digital alter ego and spend hours commanding them to eat and pee instead of eating and peeing themselves. It's all about creating a perfect miniature of their lives on a small screen and being able to control it, just like playing with a digital dollhouse. After all, if you can create yourself and your partner, why shouldn't you be able to create your Fido or Mr. Whiskers and give it the same personality that they have in real life?

The first necessary step is creating a family. It's also possible to just pick up one of the pre-packaged families of the game and start playing immediately, but who wants to control anonymously created characters? Most players will decide to reproduce themselves and their pets and try to make their replicas look as close as possible to their real counterparts. Unfortunately, there aren't so many options in the creation of human characters, since the game seems to focus on unimportant details like dozens of wristbands and tattoos, instead of giving the player more hairstyles and better clothes.

The creation of pets gives the player more satisfaction. Cats and dogs are available in many breeds or in strange combos that mix completely different features: ears can be pointy, long or completely missing; hair can grow wildly or have a nice cut; tails and muzzles can be stretched or shrunk at will. It's even possible to apply different patterns to the hair, in order to have tabby cats or multi-colored dogs. Once a pet is created, it can be forced into the most horrific of the experiences an animal can ever suffer: being dressed and customized with plenty of different collars, ribbons and even shoes. Why a pet should feel the need to wear sneakers is still completely obscure to me. Maybe its owner is a sadist? Still, it's there for people who are really into that sort of thing.


Every pet has its own personality that is decided at the moment of the creation. A "snooty" cat will spend most of the time licking itself, while a "pigpen" dog often has flies buzzing in a cloud around him, just like Pigpen. "Lazy" cat? It will sleep all day long on his favorite cushion, without feeling any desire to play with those expensive toys coming straight from the shop at the town square. "Hyper" dog? It will run after all the neighbors' pets scaring them to death, dig in the garden, eat the food on the kitchen counter and, even worse, scratch its claws on the most expensive sofa in the house. Whenever this happens, the pet can be scolded so that after a few times, it will reinforce positive behaviors like "no scratching" and "no peeing". It's also possible to teach pets commands, which can vary from the basic "sit down" and "use toilet" to the hilarious "play dead", where the pet staggers for a while before pretending to faint.

Pets can't be directly controlled by the player, but they have aspirations and desires that can be fulfilled by their owners. Every new command learned and every aspiration fulfilled give Pet Points, the only accepted currency in the town square. Human characters can go there with their four-legged friends whenever they want to chat with other pet lovers and shop for animal-related goods, such as exotic food, new toys and trendy accessories. It's even possible (though extremely cruel) to leave a pet at the local Pet Kennel and buy a new one with the earned points. Too bad the town square and the park are the only places where Sims can go: there aren't many available options in these locations, and it looks like Sims don't have any other interests other than their pets. No parties, no concerts, no restaurants... who would like such a flat life?