The Sims 2 Apartment Pets First Look! (DS)

The Sims 2: Apartment Pets is a follow-up to Sims 2 Pets, a dog and cat care simulator released for DS in 2006. Now take on more pint-sized pals in Apartment Pets which lets you adopt and raise rabbits, birds, snakes, guinea pigs, and fish in addition to dogs and cats.

In Apartment Pets, customize and control a young apartment dweller who handles an ever-revolving door of neighbors' pets, sick strays and the like. Their job is to keep the pets healthy and happy until they're ready to be sent home. Downstairs, your character also runs a pet spa. Customers come in with pets and it's your job to 'diagnose' the ailment (needs a bath, needs a Tic Tac) and treat it.

Each pet comes with a set of stats that show levels energy, happiness and affection. Icons also show up when they need a good scrubbing. Nintendogs fans will find the pet interaction interface familiar -- the bottom touch screen of the DS is used to play with and groom the pet. We watched a sequence in which our character sprayed a smelly dog with perfume by rubbing the DS stylus over the pooch's fur.

The different pets also include their own unique minigames. The parrot, for example, initiated a Dance Dance Revolution-style rhythm sequence and gave us an Elvis pose after we completed it successfully.

In previous Pets games, EA reps say that people loved to dress up their animals, so Apartment Pets will feature hundreds of unlockable wearables. We dressed up a cat in a jester outfit (please don't call PETA on us) and laughed as we watched it walk, sullenly, around the apartment in the silly hat and jacket.

When it's time for pets to leave your apartment, a 'memory' of them will be stored in a scrapbook. Want to play with one of your former furry housemates? Open the scrapbook and you'll be able to load him/her into the game.

Like other Sims games, completing tasks will unlock new apartment themes. Unlike other Sims games, you can't rearrange your furniture, but you can change the style of each piece, as well as the walls and flooring.

The game looks graphically comparable to other DS titles, and the controls will easy to pick up even if you haven't played other Sims games. Apartment Pets will appeal both to the kid who wants a pet without the responsibilities or to lonely urbanites whose landlords aren't as pet-friendly as they seem to be in the Sim universe.