NeoPets

"A great online game but due to chatting restrictions, the community doesn't socialise."

NeoPets is a cute quirky pet online game for all ages worldwide!
This game has been for quite a while meaning they have professional experience on how to run a pet site other than the new pet websites trying to catch its glory.
NeoPets is about being the best in some ways, grabbing reputation by getting first prize in a difficult game, build your collection of black sand or train your pet to the best and send him to war to do justice or to aid evil and take over Neopia, which is the planet of NeoPets. There are a wide selection of pets to choose from such as Shoyrus and Lupes.

Graphics: 10 out of 10 - The design and pictures of Neopets are absolutely amazing. The artwork is exceptionally good (professional artists at play). The flash movies and games have extraordinary graphics for such a media. Every detail has been made sure it's there. Everything is prefect. The design is perfect. I have no more to say.

Game Play: 8 out of 10 - You gain NeoPoints, which is the currency of NeoPets by playing games daily, entering contests, selling items or get lucky by spinning Wheels (Like Wheel of Fortune). The website is especially kinder to little kids and freezes anyone permanently even for swearing. There are many games to play though it does get repetitive. For those who like a battle, there is a place called the Battle Arena where you can send your pets, to bring out their weapons and clash (and of course, show off their flashy weapons such a Ice Dagger or a Tiki Amulet). After fierce battling in Battle Arena, you can also go back to your Neo Home and relax or redecorate with Zen or Dung or Jelly furniture (whatever is your taste) or go over somebody's house and envy at their own furniture. After envying, you can go to the Trade Post to check on the offers made to your items or your Shop to check how much people you rip off, or grab some yummy omelet from a prehistoric landscape or even go wild and create your guild! You could go collect more sand bottles for collection or you can play with your pet or you can torture your pet by not feeding or merely, don't even spend with him/her at all. Oh no, do you hear that, it's a war cry! Wars on Neopia are a great way to show off and work as a team to take down the other team (sadly, this does not include realtime cooperation or actual interaction at battle when fighting the enemy) . After a long war, you can retire by going to collect avatars which you can use to show off in the Message Boards. This shows how efficent you are by sitting on your bottom all night refreshing the same page all over again until you got it (sarcasm). There is completely no lag but you do need a broadband connection to really enjoy its content (no loading times, some flashs) but it is still tolerable to wait for those pictures and flash content if you're on a dial-up connection.

Music: 6 out of 10 - There is no music except for a few Flash games but they are nothing special. The sound effects sound pretty okay.

Replay Value: 10 out of 10 - No matter what, there ALWAYS something to do on NeoPets. You can go try and get a high score or you can write an article for Neopian Times, which the weekly newspaper for NeoPets, or explore hidden areas. There's always something happening in NeoPets, I can tell you that. No matter what, NeoPets keeps on pumping content like there's no tomorrow.

Multi-player: 3 out of 10 - Disgraceful. There are many scammers on NeoPets unfortunately and grab a lot of accounts. This makes it difficult to trust anyone because hackers sometimes will get to the point of trying to befriend you and then stab you in the back Due to the restrictions of speech and chat access, it is very difficult to socialise. There are hardly any IMs (IMs are very dangerous if you want to protect your account) and for some reason, everyone becomes damn greedy when it comes to neopoints (Even I was lured into the trap). There are never teamwork activity except chess and some other various games. Sadly, this is the case in Neopets. The board helps but is slightly laggy, making it difficult for any type of chat and there also some idiots that think making chain posts (posts that say "post this 10 times and get 1 million np") is funny back and they always seem to get away. Nevertheless, the moderators are quite active to keep the board in control and I think they done a great job but due to the amount of users, it is very difficult to moderate such a board and a lot of the time, many threads slip through the moderator net.

Overall: Great pet game with professional artists and designers but sadly, its designers has let it down and made it a flash game website, not an online game where everyone is supposed to socialise due to the restrictions of no online chat or not many teamwork activities. Nevertheless, the flash games are always fun and the point of NeoPets I guess is "Competition".

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/13/06