The Non-Game That Barks Like A Game

Well thought out games blog Lost Garden has a design analysis of Nintendogs. In his estimation, gamers who are shrugging this off as "another Nintendo toy" are doing themselves a disservice. From the article: "There is nothing on that market that compares to Nintendogs. If you dig into the game mechanics at an abstract level, it has surprisingly more in common with a RPG than most virtual pet games. Yet hardcore gamers make a snap judgement and instantly assume it must be a Tamagotchi-style game. This is an unfortunate mistake that limits our understanding of the game design."

If anything...

[Bob-o-Matic!]

I figure it is worth a few bucks just to see what all those Japanese kids are raving all about. What, you haven't bought something just to be in the "in crowd"? Coming from Nintendo, you have better than even odds of it being pretty good.

Now, if only I had a DS... My wife owes me a replacement for breaking the screen in my GBA SP :(

Totally uncalled for

[XFilesFMDS1013]

Dissing Tamagotchi was not needed. Tamagotchi is the most interactive 3 button game out there, anyone can tell you that.

Re:no thanks

[sehryan]

Uh, wtf dude. The DS is not just a new version of a GB.

Second, from everything that I have been reading, Nintendogs is not just a gimmick.

And third, even if you think it is, that is no reason to discard it. Tetris was just a gimmick, even more than Nintendogs stands to be. Hell, even Pac-Man can be considered a gimmick.

That is what games are based around. Something fun, something catchy, something gimmicky. If you look deep enough, every game has a gimmick that it is holding on to.

Portable

[MagicDude]

Yeah, but the Dogstation wasn't for a handheld system. With Nintendogs, you can play with it for a few minutes at a time on the bus or waiting in line or whatever. It seems like this kind of pet sim game works better in short doses where 100% attention isn't required. If you're playing on the bus and get bumped by someone or have to get off the bus, you don't risk losing life on your character becuase you lost focus for a second or something, so it's a kind of game which works well in a crazy hustle bustle of being in transit or whatever. Plus it's ultra-cute, so it plays well in public compared to playing Ultra Gore Fest 4.