NeoPets

"Fun, until it becomes a chore"

I resisted being pulled into Neopets by my friends who were members for a while. I thought I had enough addictions. In addition to being a gamer, I also write short stories, collecting game books and videos of Japanese action shows. And that's in addition to the daily grind. But after a while I gave in to the cajoling and got an account at Neopets.com. The game grabbed me and wouldn't let me go, but for a while I wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

The first thing a person does after joining Neopets is either create a new pet, or adopt one given up by another player from the Neo-humane society. Whichever avenue you choose, you can't do anything on the game until after you've gotten yourself at least one pet. You choices include such beasties as the feline kougra, the dragon-like Shoyru, the penguin-like Bruce, and the Meerca, which is somewhere inbetween a squirrel and a crazy ball.

After that you get a starter kit of items which usually contains things like a book, some food, and special weapons for your pet. You'll want to pick up other items, mostly in order to keep your pet fed and happy, but also things like toys for them to play with, toothbrushes and beauty aids to keep them looking pretty (though the effect is the same as using toys on them), and some things which do absolutely nothing at all besides look neat in your inventory.

But to get more items, you need to a lot of "Neopoints," which act like money. You can get these by visiting the "money tree" in the center of town, by getting friends to sign up, but most often you get them as rewards for playing online games on the site like Pyramids, Carnival of Doom and Toy Box Escape.

Occasionally you might also be approached by one of the fairies that rule the world of Neopets, who'd like you to find some item for them or other. If you succeed one of your pets will be blessed with an increase in one of their abilities, which I'll talk more about in a second. The thing about accepting a quest is that you're denied use of the "shop wizard," which you use to shop for a specific item, until it's over. So basically, the only way you'll ever succeed in a quest for a fairy is to either look at the auctions going on (the Neopets version of ebay), or to use a trick I like to call "having a friend find you the item and send you a link."

But about the abilities, this comes into play because Neopets is equal parts Pokemon, Tamagotchi and a role-playing game. Because you see, each pet has several stats, like speed, strength, and endurance, and these are put to the best if you have them battle someone else's Neopets, or pre-made characters in the "battledome." You can have fairies power up your pets, but a more reliable way is to sign them up for martial arts lessons where you can raise whatever stat you think they need the most. There's also weapons and treasures to equip them with before sending them into battle in order to increase their chances.

As you can see, there's a lot to see and do when you play Neopets. Unfortunately, like in any pet-raising experience, whether real or virtual, eventually the rush of being involved in something so cool wears off and it becomes a tedious chore of coming on, buying food for your pets and feeding them for the day.

You can build a house for your pets (a Neohome), planning a layout of rooms and then filling each room with furniture you can pick up from stores or auctions, but it's totally pointless. You never do anything besides look at the furniture layout. That's probably okay for some players, but when I plunk down twenty grand I like to get something I can use. You can also get magic paintbrushes to change what your pets look like, as well, but again all they do is change what the experience of looking at them is like. Even seeing that your pets are well-fed, groomed and happy with their toys gets old after a couple months.

There are obviously plenty of people who don't mind the faults and repetition of the Neopets experience, as proven by the millions of users the game had by the time I left. But when I play a game I don't like it to become a chore. The point of games is to have fun. But after a while the only thing to do on Neopets was come on every morning and make sure the little buggers were fed. And since it was just a computer game, I didn't feel any guilt leaving it and them behind it.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/16/04