After buying the Nintendo Wii the weekend before last, we headed back to the store on friday evening where we bought it, near line 2 station Dongchang road. We wanted a second Wii controller all week badly to play Wii Sports: Tennis and other games against each other, and the game store lady told us she would have new ones in last week. And she did! But damn, a controller costs almost a quarter of the whole console set, a whopping 450 kuai. At least we bargained in some games with that price - one of them being The Sims 2: Pets.

Now after we bought the Wii my wife told me that she’d like to have some ‘real life’ game, and I guess no other game than The Sims comes near that request. I played the very first one a couple of years ago quite heavily for about two weeks, but when I’d realized that there was no ‘end’ of the game in that sense, I got tired of it and never touched it again. You just keep on playing The Sims, there will never be any end-boss or something else - that’s weird and fascinating at the same time.

Saturday afternoon we launched the game - and from the second the game started, my wife was hooked. We (actually: she) didn’t stop playing until the middle of the night! It’s quite more complex than the first Sims game, you have much more choices, but the concept is the same: live. Your Sim needs to eat, sleep, shower and sh*t. At the same time, you have one or more pets to take care of - you can create a family, and then add cats and / or dogs. The pets require attention, too: They also need food, and you can teach them tricks, you can scream at them when they dig around in your garden, and, and, and… What’s completely new is the ‘town center’, where you can go with your pets and get them washed, buy them cakes and meet other Sims.

The game is really great, so why not buy it? Because you (the man) will not be able to touch another game again. I wanted to finally finish Resident Evil 4 so bad, I wanted to continue saving Hyraule with my Zelda hero, I wanted to try out the insanely funny Wario Moves… But that all had to wait. I could have glued the controller to my wife’s hands, it wouldn’t have mattered - she didn’t let go anymore, until late that night.

And I can hardly blame her, having experienced exactly the same with the first part some years ago! So do yourself (and your action game needs) a favor, and never ever buy The Sims 2: Pets (if you have a wife). Trust me on that one…