Nintendogs: Dachshund and Friends

THE BAD:
- Doesn't Have Online Mode.
- No Story.
- No Voice Acting.
- Very Limited
- Gets Boring After A While.
- You Have To Play It Every Day.
- Repetitive.

SUMMARY:
All the Nintendogs games are practically the same, this review will show you the general positive and negative points of this game.

The graphics are very good, however, we can't call them perfect. The dogs are very well detailed, you can see that they are almost real, the fur they have is very nice and detailed.
The places that you go to are also very detailed. Your house, for example, is a very good place and you can decorate it the way you want. You can see everything in your house, the graphics "Adjust" to the place. Same in the park, you can see the nature elements very clearly.

The music is good, therefore, it can get bored after a while because it is repetitive, but luckily, you can always get some extra tracks when you go in a walk for your dog. The music in your house and most of the competitions events are very similar.

The gameplay is the only perfect element here. This game is taking the advantages of the DS to the maximum level. You use the TouchScreen to navigate through menus, pet your dog, and you teach your dog techniques using the TouchScreen and the Microphone. You play with your dog using the TouchScreen.
Now, the microphone is used to call your dog. When your dog is far away, just say his name into the Michrophone, your dog will go directly to you. You also use it to give instructions to your dog.
Now, to train your dog, you use both TouchScreen and microphone in a synchronized way. You slide the stylus on the screen, then you have to name the command using your voice.

This game has easter eggs. You can dress your dog, but that's not all, you can dress it using Nintendo accessories, like a Mario Hat or a Luigi Hat, there are many options for you.

There are many dogs to select from, every dog is very different. They have different attitudes and features. There are many to name them.

There are many things you can unlock and collect. That includes some accessories and even more dogs.

There are many things you can do. You can participate on three different competitions. You can also take your dog in long or short walks.

This game doesn't have online. To be honest, I am not sure if could be implemented, there isn't too much to do alone, I don't think how much it would change playing online.

There's no story. You are a normal trainer, but there's no story. The events won't "procede" in the game.

No voice acting, everything is plain text. It would have been nice, though, at least in the competition events.

Very limited. Even when there is a bunch of dogs to select from, you can only live with three, and have 4 in the Dog Shelter. If you want a new dog when you can't get more, you will have to sell one of them.
Also, at first, your walks have to be very short, they increase in lenght the most you take them to a walk. However, when you take them to a walk, you have to wait 30 minutes before doing it again. This factor caused me to give a 3 to this game. It's not nice to wait 30 minutes before walking again.

It gets boring, specially when you have to wait 30 minutes before walking again. There's nothing you can do in the game to wait that ammount.

You have to play it every day if you want to keep your dogs in your house and keep them clean. if you don't play after a while, your dogs may scape from your house and return after a while. If your dogs aren't in your house, there's NOTHING you can do.

It gets repetitive. The events are bored after 2 or three times, you may want to wait a while before playing them again.

Overall, to be honest, I don't recomend this games if you like long, non-repetitive games. This game is good for casual gamers. If you are a hardcore gamer, stay away of this game.

THE BAD:
A few restrictions feel unnecessarily limiting at times.

SUMMARY:
You'd have to have a cold heart indeed to not be charmed by the bright eyes and madly wagging tails of the wonderfully lifelike Nintendogs. The game's boisterous and affectionate young canines are impossibly endearing, making the tasks of caring for them, training them, and simply interacting with them a joy. That Nintendogs occasionally limits some of your activities in what is already a streamlined set of options is pretty much the only bad thing you can say about the virtual puppy game. However, the game is at its best in short, satisfying bursts, and is suited to dog lovers of all ages.

When you start the game, you'll immediately be whisked to the Nintendog Kennel to choose a companion from among six different breeds of scampering cuteness. The breeds you have available to you at the beginning of the game depend on the version you're playing, though all versions can eventually unlock all 18 types. Each individual dog has its own personality, from shy to daring, from willing student to determined truant. Every time you bring up a particular breed listing, the puppies you can choose from will shuffle to a random selection of colors and personalities, so you can hand-pick the type of pooch you want. Pay the adoption fee, and then head home to bond with your new cold-nosed friend.

The bonding comes easily with Nintendogs, due in large part to the high levels of care and detail that went into creating these digital canines. It's not just that the puppies have been given the accurate appearance of their given breeds--though the representation is quite authentic, down to the different coat and color patterns. It's that a great host of doggy mannerisms have all been captured just about perfectly. Every enthusiastic gallop after a tennis ball is just right, the way their eyes close in satisfaction and their tail blurs into motion when they're patted, the way they sometimes flop over each other for a sudden nap, and each tongue-lolling, panting stare filled with happy adulation is pure puppy. So it's easy for you to become rapidly attached to your new virtual pals, and it's hard for you to resist the occasional sad-eyed face and plaintive whine of a Nintendog begging for attention.

Once you get your dog home, you'll be able to name it using the game's voice-recognition software, repeating it a few times until your pooch "learns" his or her name. After an initial adjustment period in which you'll shower your new puppy with attention, you can begin training it. As a puppy performs an action it can learn as a trick, a light bulb icon appears in the corner of the screen. Quickly tapping this icon lets you record a command to associate with that action--for example, linking the word "sit" to when the dog sits down. Then it's a matter of associating that same word with the same action multiple times, until your puppy learns the trick. A successful training session results in another light bulb above Rover's head and a happy yip; if your dog is confused, red question marks appear over his head to let you know you need to speak a bit more clearly next time. Blue question marks appear if you're trying to teach a command that sounds like something the puppy already knows, so you don't risk overlapping your tricks.

Once you've taught your puppy a number of commands (the amount of time this takes depends on whether or not you picked one of those daring, headstrong dogs, which seemed like a good idea when you bought it) and raised your trainer level a bit, you can begin preparing your dog for the various contests you can compete in. There are three different types: obedience, which rates your dog on how well it follows verbal commands; disc, which lets you show off your dog's Frisbee-catching prowess; and agility, which is a hectic romp through an obstacle course. How well your puppy does depends on how much you've been practicing a given activity and how strong your bond is. Placing in the top three earns you a sparkling trophy, prize money, and a boost to the next level of competition. If you lose, you're knocked down a level, so you'll have to move your way back to the top.

THE BAD:
-limited gaemplay.
-have to use wireless feature to unlock some dogs.

SUMMARY:
Concept
Take cute and adorable puppies and digitalise them
Graphics
The detail on the puppies are excellent, but the environments aren't all that detailed.
Sound
The music is kind of childish but thats okay because you won't notice it that much. The puppy noises are cute and you can hear what is happening outside of your house also.
Control
Mainly all you'll need to use is the DS stylus which is good because there are many uses for the stylus, but what buttons you do have to push are mapped out well.
Gameplay
The main object is to train and take care of your puppy so that it does well in dog tournaments. You can teach your puppy tricks and pet him/her and play catch with them. YOu can also feed/water and give your puppy baths and brush it, but your kind of limited to what you can do with your puppy. The Wi-Fi is used to unlock puppies but thats a downside if you don't have the right connections.
Replay Value
Nintendogs is the type of game that you don't finish because it's a never ending game which isn't bad but you might stop playing the game for a couple of weeks or even months.
Conclusion
This game uses the DS stylus well and you can do many things with your puppy. There is some online multiplayer in it and thats how you get some of your puppies. This game is an incredibly fun and addicting game. Have fun.

THE BAD:
I think the only serious problem with the game is telling the dog commands, I guess it got a little hard having to keep the commands at the same tempo and tone so they know what you are saying. Sometimes you could tell them to lie down and they could use the command shake instead. I found that quite frustration. I think they should of gave you another choose of saying the commands or using your stylus to tell them.

SUMMARY:
This game is incredible to play. Some advice for you all. Your pup is like a tamagotchi. Keep caring for it, or they'll run away and I don't think you'd want that. You do keep busy when handling your young pups, teaching them commands, brushing them, washing them, training them and holding them in competitions. It's a lot of hard work. When continuing, it could get a little boring at sometimes, but it does give you many hours of fun.

THE BAD:
- The background music can get repetitive and annoying, but then again you could just turn down the sound...
- I find that voice commands can often be misunderstood or not recognised at all which could be due to background noise or the fact that you must say each command in the same way all of the time...
- There are some pointless restrictions put in place. These restrictions are ones like the 'only 3 tournaments a day' rule which is very irritating at times and can take some of the fun away... Kind of.

SUMMARY:
OMG I had been waiting for a new DS game that got reasonable pro reviews. When I read the reviews and watched video clips of Nintendogs I thought to myself " I may have to get this game". When I bought the game and I started to play I was really happy with what I had just spent by *cough* hard-earned *cough* cash on because from the go it seemed really innovative and the graphics and sound were superb for the DS.

The game begins by giving you a choice out of the 6 breeds of dog. It then goes on to setting its name through using the voice command function and at first this seems a really good and useful feature, although you soon get tired of saying its name... Anyway, after this the game instructs you in teaching your dog to 'Sit'. This is done by calling your dog over and making a downwards gesture with the stylus, making the dog sit, you then must touch the icon that appears and say your voice command that the dog will respond to. It will recognise the command and you can pet it which helps it to learn the command. You do this three or so times and your dog will learn the command. Great.

From then on you can choose what you do and how you do it. Personally I like taking the dogs for walks because you find some really cool items, but I will let you find them out for yourself. You can only walk your dog every 30 minutes, but this seems like nothing when you have three dogs to walk. You could also enter your dog, once you have practiced, into any of the three tournaments. You can train your dogs in the home, the park or the gymnasium place... Winning contests is a very good way to earn a lot of money which helps you buy more dogs, you have up to 8 dogs, but only 3 can be active and the others must be kept in the 'Dog Hotel'. You can also feed, bath or groom your dog. At that folks, is basically it. I may have missed some features yet they are probably not important because I cant remember them...

The thing about this game is that, if you are like me, you enjoy games that you can beat and games with set objectives. Nintendogs is a game that never actually ends... Endless. It is a good game which gives you some freedom and that you can just pick up and play for a bit. To be honest though I am getting a bit bored already of it and I haven't had it for too long. However, at the moment it is a very worthy DS game which has the best graphics seen on the DS yet and is good for hardcore and casual gamers alike. Check this game out if you have the chance.

THE BAD:
Within a few weeks, you've seen most of what nintendogs has to offer.

SUMMARY:
Nintendogs was one of the first few games to be realeased onto the DS. It was held with high regards in Japan, but did it live up to it's hype in the rest of the world?

When you first pick up the game, you choose between one of six dogs. Soon after going home with your dog, you start to teach it tricks. And this is were the big standout for Nintendogs is. You use your voice and touch to train your dog to learn diffrent tricks. It almost seems like the DS was built around Nintendogs. It's slightly hard to understand, but after a few tricks you get to leran to run-down of the skills. And after you teach your fluffy puppy it's first trick, the rest of the game is intirely left to you. You can spend all of your time just peting him, or training him to be the perfect champion in the obidence trials. Or, you could store up huge wads of cash and trainer points to get an awesome house. You do whatever you want to do. The open-ended play can be a drawback however, because after a wile you just finnish everything that you can do. This is why you can't play nintendogs for nine hours at a time, but it's great for killing an hour or two on a plane.

So, is it really like owning a puppy?
Well, yes and no. Your puppy really reacts to you. When you tap the screen, your puppy sees you and starts wagging it's tail. If you start to scratch it, he gets down on the floor and rolls over. But if you ignore him, he tilts his head and wonders why you aren't petting him. Some things though, will never be captured by technology, but nintendogs comes really close. For those of you who can't own a dog, it's a real treat. And if you already own a dog, you get the best of owning a dog, without the mess and hassel, if you know what I mean. But what's for sure is that you won't be dissapointed by the design of the dogs. Theres really nothing left to be desired.

Breakdown: Nintendogs is really a must buy for dog-lovers, or video game lovers anywere. All of the abbilities of the DS were used to their fullest. It's a great game just to relax with. The graphics are great, sounds are bright and catchy and there's an enormous amount of items to find. You can also meet real people with use of Bark Mode, were your dogs can interact wirelessly within 100 feet or so. The only problem with the game is that you eventually run out of things to do. After you complete all three compititions, unlocked all the dogs and bought an awesome house, you've pretty much seen everything there is to see. But Nintendogs is always easy to pick up and play again. Nintendogs is one of the best games for DS, and is deffinetly worth a try.