Nintendogs
Stumbled across this game when i was looking through this months issue of Gamefreaks. Looks pretty interesting.. remember the Tamagotchi? A passing fad? maybe, but Nintendo have recently released Nintendogs for the DS in Japan. It's sort of like the Tamagotchi games but this is a much more evolved version of it.
There are three versions of the game: Dachschund, Labrador Retriever and Chihuahua (I would go for the labrador myself) and in each game you can do a multitude of things with your furry friend. You have to clean, feed, excersise and even pick up your dogs after dinner pitstop. Most of those you could do to your Tamagotchi but Nintendogs goes much beyond that, you can pat your dog by using the touch screen and teach it simple tricks with the microphone, also if you are on the subway or walking through a crowded place and your DS picks up another person with the game who is standing near you the dog will bark and you can connect the two together and let the dogs play with each other, cool eh?
Another important difference between this and the Tamagotchi is just how damn cute they look, instead of just a blob on the screen you get a very realistic image of mans best friend:
Doesn't that make you want to pick it up and cuddle it?
This sort of game will open up gaming to a wider audience and perhaps it might make it a more viable public activity which isn't restricted to certain demographics. Nintodogs has been hugely succesful for the DS in Japan as sales have increased enormously, with a lot of the purchases being made by women. (Check out this wired article) That can only be a good thing.
The fact that these puppys will always remain a puppy and never die may make certain people prefer these to real dogs, could this see the end of the household pet? A bit farfetched i know but not too far i think. Still, even though these are far more manageable pets theres nothing quite like having your 1 year old puppy curling up at the foot of your bed when you go to sleep.
Related Info:
Nintendogs Website
BBC News Article
Wikipedia Article
Flash Demo
posted by Andrew Cozens @ 10:54 am
1 comments
1 Comments:
Aah, this blog is like a real newscast: it's Friday afternoon, it's vacation time (for some of us at least :-{ ), so it must be time for a heartwarming story about pets. (Technopets in this case, of course.) Crikey, mustn't let my kids see this or I'll never hear the end of it. Wonder if this will port to the XBox? I'm thinking Rottweillers that start biting chunks out of your leg if you forget to muzzle them or Bull Mastiffs that go all soppy and cuddly if you forget to neglect them. What do you reckon?
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