Paws & Claws Pet Vet

"Poor Animal"

When I think of veterinary medicine, I imagine a profession which is both challenging and fulfilling, dealing with everyday health aspects of animals, and something that brings us closer to the ubiquitous fauna that share this beautiful planet with us. I guess the guys that brought out Pet Vet don't think like me at all.

Visuals - 3
Sound & Music - 4 (Nice music track, but only 1!?)
Gameplay - 2
Controls - B
Longevity - B (~4 hours to complete task-list)
Replayability - C
Difficulty - Very Easy

Pets - 6 kinds
VERDICT - 1.5

Being a vet has never been easier...
If real-life vet practice was like how it is in this game, the SPCA would be pretty anal about the amount of professional neglect due to doctors dozing off. It's a vet sim in an extremely loose sense; of course they had to make it less cerebral to allow the common gamer to get some fun out of this experience, but they have simplified it to the point of being a bore-fest.

You can initially learn quite a bit about various domesticated animals as well as a couple of common diseases/deficiencies which present as they would in reality. Clients bring their sick pets to you, their file is quickly skimmed for patient history, you carry out your examination, and then you diagnose the problem. Sounds good, but you aren't really involved in any of these steps yourself. You read up about the case and that's about it. After about an hour you will soon find that many of the complaints are exactly the same time after time, and most can also be treated in nearly the exact same way as well.

Onto the treatment, which is always fun in practice, but ain't the case here. The last page of each report tells you exactly what you'll need to make the pet and the owner happy. Whether you have to administer a tonic, followed by an antibiotic, finishing off with some disinfectant (these 3 things occurring as often as I breathe) - it's all the same; you touch the selection on the menu, touch the animal anywhere that the game says is correct (which is practically anywhere on the animal), and the touch to execute the injection, swab, whatever. No skill required at all. No fun at all. And the game is 85% about doing this hundreds of times.

The life of a vet in this game isn't always full of action. During the dry spells when no-one has a need for your services, you'll have to stock up on inventory, manage the sick animals that you have temporarily taken into your care, and perhaps take a few examinations that will allow you look at more animals. There are 6 in all, including rabbits, canines, felines and horses, but the treatment procedures remain almost identical despite the obvious anatomical differences. If it's boring to take care of animals, you can imagine how it's like when there's nothing better than that to do...

You only get out what you put in...
There are 2 things I liked about this game. First is that taking good care of animals that you have taken into your charge, feeding them well, administering medicine appropriately, lavishing praise etc. etc. will net you big bucks. If you do it right, you will get your returns all right! However doing the same samey routine every morning is NOT right. While you go about doing your daily rounds, you can leave clients sitting in the waiting room for hours of game-time, and there isn't any negative consequence too. This is supposed to be a simulator right? Nope. You can even rush out to grab some more anti-inflammatory from the not-in-town pharmacy whilst an owner is impatiently waiting for you to see their traumatised cat. This is a sim of malpractice!

The other thing I liked about this game was the lovely music track that accompanies you throughout your veterinarian life. This happens to also be the ONLY track in-game too! Talk about low budget eh?

Pet Vet allows you take things at your own pace. The save anytime feature allows for quick bouts, and there is no limit to the number of game days available to complete all 22 tasks and firmly establish a successful practice. I wish there was some more direction though. It seems that all you do is the same monotonous task of treating animals, and the money you earn is simply used to expand your facilities so that you take care of more animals at a time. Sure you can micro-manage even more by investing some cash towards advertising or gaining interest through the bank, but the best way to hit the jackpot is to simply feed gourmet food to each sick pet. Does that even make sense?!

Come here horsey... NEIGH!
The visual side of things brings this title down with tiny sprites and a bland colour palette. Animations are non-existent too; if I'm going to waste 5 seconds petting the darn rabbit, then at least have the decency to show me doing it clearly! The 2D engine also translates to the horse-riding mini-game, which looks like a poor man's Excitebike from 2 decades ago. Again there isn't any goal here other than to ride around with a clunky d-pad (I wouldn't try the stylus here..) You have to earn the privilege to ride in the main game by extending your practice far enough to accommodate stallions and mares (not to mentions the amount of dough you'll need to amass), but apart from aiming for full task completion there's no other reward. And the fact that you can play this lame mini-game from the title menu right at the start means all is for naught.

Pet Vet doesn't try to be like The Sims: Pets (closest thing to it really) and this is why it fails. There isn't much to do, and if you take the 4 hours or so required to finish all the tasks, you can probably go through any punch that any sordid developer tries to pull. Young gamers deserve better than this, so don't be fooled by it's cute cover and kid-friendly graphical look if you're a parent yourself. I started this game for all the wrong reasons, and I finished it just to prove I could handle just about anything. In saying that, I was happy when I was done with it.

1.5/10 - Don't Get Pet Vet

My Score System – a score of 7 from me denotes a good, solid game. Excellence earns a higher grade, whilst 4-6 reflects a below average product; glitchy, unplayable games deserve less.

20/04/07

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 04/20/07