"Well, um, well I guess that the dogs are kinda cute."

Huge hype, and when I say huge hype, I mean it. This was going to be the PSP killer, the one to sell the DS. Wow. These people were definitely wrong. Nintendogs is a very unique game. A living, breathing dog, always at your finger tips. You can get many different dogs at once, and play with them, pet them, take them on walks, etc. With the word going around that Nintendo is just a kid company this not helping it's reputation. Nintendogs is a very overrated game and is not as good as everyone says it is.

A soundtrack to this game is nonexistent. There is a little bit of music, but it's weak. You can find records, and then play it for your dogs, but then that's about it for the music department. When you go to competitions, you can hear the crowd... and that's all. I feel that they could of put a little bit more effort into this, but, what can I say. The dogs are what is important here huh?

The dogs look spectacular. Each of them have many different expressions and movements, so they look like real puppies. All of the dogs are different colors and this gives a lot of variety. Some are gray, some are brown, black, white. They look very real also, so all of that mixed together makes the dogs very believable. Overall, the graphics are the best part of the game.

Now, here's where it gets boring. Okay, that's a light for it. There are a couple of things to do, but nothing to keep you interested for more than an hour. The first thing that you do is pick a dog. You have about 6 to pick from, which to me, is a reasonable choice. You get dogs along the way, and this gives you a good variety of pets. After that, you can start teaching them tricks. Yep, you have to teach them tricks. This is a very tedious and boring process, and will take up about half of your gaming life. The dogs are pretty dumb, and they never listen to you. This will make you frustrated, and you will find yourself shutting this game off very quickly.

To get money or prizes, you can enter dog competitions. If you have ever seen one on t.v. then you know what to expect. You send them through obstacle courses, make them fetch, make them catch a shower cap, (yeah a shower cap). Over, no fun here. If you want to you can just sit there and pet them, but, who would want to?

There are many optional items to collect. You can get toys, sports items, and more. These, I guess, up the replay value, but I don't really see how. You can let a dog sleep, or you can take them to a hotel. One of the funnest things to do though, is pay no attention to them, then they run away or eat garbage.

Overall, Nintendogs was extremely disappointing. I was expecting a fun, inventive, risk taking game with realistic dogs, but all that I got was a game with some ordinary dogs. This definitely isn't worth it.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/06/05