NeoPets

"NeoPets is a lot like those sour candies..."

OVERVIEW

Neopets is a game set in an online, imaginary world called 'Neopia'. Here you can create pets to care for and feed, called 'Neopets'. There are over 45 different NeoPets available (46 at the time of writing this review), however you can only choose about 32 of these pets to start with. There are also several colors/themes your pet can be painted, like 'Island' and 'Starry', however when you start you can only pick from four basic colors: Red, Green, Blue, Yellow.

GAMEPLAY

Neopets can be played many different ways. Many new players struggle with this concept, trying to figure out the 'goal' or 'point' of this game... well, there IS none! Well, no defined objective, anyways. You can try to set a high score on one of the dozens of flash games Neopets offers (If you have a slow computer, don't worry, you can set the quality to low and shrink the playing area to make it go faster), you can try to collect the multitude of items (There's over 7,000 different items), make a stamp collection... tons of stuff! Most of the game, however, revolves around collecting NeoPoints, the game currency. You can get neopoints many ways, like by playing the flash games (which are absolutely free), opening a shop and selling stuff in it, or through random events where just about anything can happen as you walk around Neopia!

A fun thing to do is explore all the worlds. All the worlds have their own story, their own games, and their own features. The game can be very enthralling if you stop and look at everything...

One last thing for gameplay: There is a battle arena in this game, however new players will not be able to just jump in because the weapons needed to defeat even the simplest opponent cost way more than a new player can afford. So there's one flaw... look at all the good points!

STORY

Yes, there is a story in this game. Well, not one main story, but there are lots of little stories that make it all up, such as how Neopia came to be, or how some worlds were discovered. Very interesting.

GRAPHICS

The Neopets staff really put some great stuff together here. These aren't sloppy pixilated beasts drawn in MS Paint, there's lots of effort into the graphics. Also, each color pet has one picture for each mood/action, a beaten up one for sick pets, a happy one for happy pets, a fighting one for fighting pets... lets say there's ten poses, thirty colors/themes, forty-six pets, knock off a few because not all pets can be painted each color... you have over ten thousand pictures of the pets alone! No slacking here :)

REPLAY VALUE

It's tough to say as it differs from person to person. Some people will really like this game, while others won't get into it at all. But those who do get into it will be hooked for a long time... a loooooooong time.

NOTES...
- There are 'main' shops which are not owned by other users. Items restock in here every so often, it could be every few minutes, it could take as long as 45 minutes! However, chances are that you will not get much -- items that stock in main shops sell there for much less than their user-determined value, and the art of refreshing the page, clicking an item, and typing your offer and hitting OK in an ungodly time is a skill, one of the best ways to make NP in this game. In other words, don't get mad if you can't buy anything.
- Don't bother with the money tree. There are thousands of people looking for handouts there, you have to be lightning-quick to get anything. And when and if you do get something worth 1 NP, you'll realize that you could have spent that time playing games and making much more.
- A good chunk of the website is made with flash. So if you don't have it, it'll be really tough to make the most out of NeoPets.

ONE LAST THING...

''NeoPets is a lot like those sour candies... the outside crust is really sour and bitter, but if you don't give up on it and continue, you'll get to the really sweet candy center!''
(What I mean is, playing for 15 minutes will probably be boring, but it's because you haven't seen the whole game yet. Be patient and you'll come to enjoy it!)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/04/03, Updated 04/04/03