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The Non-Game That Barks Like A Game
Well thought out games blog Lost Garden has a design analysis of Nintendogs. In his estimation, gamers who are shrugging this off as "another Nintendo toy" are doing themselves a disservice. From the article: "There is nothing on that market that compares to Nintendogs. If you dig into the game mechanics at an abstract level, it has surprisingly more in common with a RPG than most virtual pet games. Yet hardcore gamers make a snap judgement and instantly assume it must be a Tamagotchi-style game. This is an unfortunate mistake that limits our understanding of the game design."
Dissing Tamagotchi was not needed. Tamagotchi is the most interactive 3 button game out there, anyone can tell you that.
Uh, wtf dude. The DS is not just a new version of a GB.
Second, from everything that I have been reading, Nintendogs is not just a gimmick.
And third, even if you think it is, that is no reason to discard it. Tetris was just a gimmick, even more than Nintendogs stands to be. Hell, even Pac-Man can be considered a gimmick.
That is what games are based around. Something fun, something catchy, something gimmicky. If you look deep enough, every game has a gimmick that it is holding on to.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
I am excited about Nintendogs although I agree that the game isn't exactly original. You listed some good examples but one game that no one seems to mention when it comes to Nintendogs (or at least no one mentions it on slashdot) is Dogstation for the PS2.
I've played Dogstation and it was pretty fun at the time (I really like obscure, non-mainstream games...the crazier the better) and although this game had a Tamagotchi like feel to it you still had to teach the dog to poop and pee, walk it, raise it, breed it, play with it, feed it and play mini games with it. I'm curious how close Nintendogs will be to Dogstation. I mean, even the name Nintendogs (part Nintendo / part dogs) is like a direct rip from Dogstation (part Playstation part dogs) Look at these pictures from the official dogstation webpage and compare them to Nintendogs.
http://www.konami.co.jp/am/dog/index.html
http://www.konami.jp/am/dogstation-dx/index.html
Actually, I'm going to see if the author of the story (that says there is nothing on the market like Nintendogs) and see if he has played this game and what he thought of it.
My Xbox Live Gamer Card
Yeah, but the Dogstation wasn't for a handheld system. With Nintendogs, you can play with it for a few minutes at a time on the bus or waiting in line or whatever. It seems like this kind of pet sim game works better in short doses where 100% attention isn't required. If you're playing on the bus and get bumped by someone or have to get off the bus, you don't risk losing life on your character becuase you lost focus for a second or something, so it's a kind of game which works well in a crazy hustle bustle of being in transit or whatever. Plus it's ultra-cute, so it plays well in public compared to playing Ultra Gore Fest 4.