Now about those titular pets, if you decide to construct your own family from scratch, you then get the opportunity to create some animal friends out of a choice of canine and feline breeds. After selecting the breed, you then get to customize your pet with a lot of changeable features, i.e. size, age, fur colour, any markings (and colour of), clothes (that’s right), and more. Once you've done that, you can alter their personality, and christen them of course.

Although you can't take direct control of your pets, you do get to train them and teach them new skills and tricks (like sit, roll over, come here, etc) and you do of course get to bond and play around with them. You also have to nurture your animals as equally as your Sims, meaning you are going to have to keep checking their needs, to make sure they‘re always content and happy. You are required to look after quite a few needs at a time, which can get a bit tricky with the more Sims and pets lives there are to juggle.

There is a downtown area solely for your pets, where you get to earn "pet points", which you can also spend on toys and other animal furniture, as well as unlocking hidden items.

Any of your pets can interact with other animals in the game world, whether it’s a cat or dog they will interact with each other. Although depending on your pets personality they may get into a scrap or they might even take a liking to each other. So will you be wanting a scrappy little character, or a well behaved and biddable pet? The choice really is up to you. You can also praise or scold your Pets in situations where they please you or others in which they misbehave. But the choice of which you do (scold or praise) is up to you entirely. Saying that, you can usually leave your pet in the background, and get on with your Sims needs, without them doing anything drastic (at least for a little while anyway, too much neglect will see your dejected animal take its leave and become a member of the stray community).

It may be a bit annoying going off to work, then coming back and finding your house trashed, and even more annoying when you find its your pet that has done the damage. To have a well behaved animal living at home it takes a lot of time and patience, but persistence does eventually pay off.

Overall, the Sims 2 Pets is a well designed game that fits in nicely with the other Sims titles. It may be hard work to maintain your pets discipline as well as keeping an eye on what is required to make sure your Sims are all living happily, oh and then there’s the matter of keeping the house neat and tidy, but these are all repetitive tasks that we all face daily, and this is what makes The Sims series some of the best simulation games in the history of the industry. Pets just takes a good idea and adds to it, many will know what to expect from the series by now, and fans will obviously love it, although those new to the series are going to either adore or detest it, there’s just no middle ground with this one.

Words by Kyle Sage