Posted: Sunday 12th October 2008

The Sims 2: Apartment Pets is the fourth Sims title to appear on the Nintendo DS. It will likely be the last title under The Sims 2 label as The Sims 3 is finally on the horizon next year. Apartment Pets is a variation on the newly released Apartment Life expansion pack for The Sims 2 on the PC.

The premise for this title is that the gamer must look after their own pets whilst running a Pet Spa and looking after the pets of the neighbourhood. Luckily your Sim lives in an apartment situated above the spa they run so you don't have to worry about roaming around the town trying to find your place of work. When the game begins it takes you through a lengthy tutorial to help you orientate your way around the controls. Apartment Pets is based largely on mini-games and hanging out around the apartment helps you get to grips with those. You can play with your pet, brush him, wash him and feed him. A quirky feature also enables you to play dress up so you can make your pet look beautiful in a costume and boots.

Once in the salon, the mini-games that you've spent time playing come into play once again as you build up your clientele. When a new pet comes in, you have to figure out what needs doing to them. Clues are provided and then you must complete a series of mini-games in order to making your client happy. An example is washing a pet; a series of hotspots appear on the touch screen and you have to hover the showerhead over them whilst pressing the L button to spray water. Believe us when we say that it's definitely worth working through the tutorials. We tried to skip a few and found ourselves incredibly stuck with little idea of what we were supposed to do.

The idea behind the game is to earn as much money as you can to enable you to upgrade your spa and unlock bonus items for your pet and your apartment.

Whilst The Sims 2: Apartment Pets is good fun, it does become a little repetitive after a while. You find yourself doing the same thing over and over again and it doesn't have the same free-roaming aspect as previous Sims titles. The game is only supposed to be a stopgap until the new version in 2009 so we'll let it off this time.

Fans of The Sims will no doubt lap this game up but those new to the phenomenon should probably wait for The Sims 3 next year. Whilst the title is good fun and gives a slightly different spin to the series, it doesn't offer anything unique that we haven't seen from the series before. Apartment Pets will shoot to the top of the gaming charts but it isn't the best title this series has to offer.