Nintendogs: Virtual Puppy Simulation for Nintendo DS - Meet Shiba, Chihuahua, Dachshu

News from <a href="http://www.yesasia.com/?/news.php?artc=3623&&lsaid=219793" target="_blank" >Lik Sang</a>

<BLOCKQUOTE>Our friends in Japan love dogs. They also love dog movies (no less than four cinematic canine offerings between 2002 and today), dog postcards, dog screensavers, and thanks to Nintendo and the Nintendo DS now also dog based videogames. Nintendogs is actually not a game to be exact, it is a virtual pet simulation that comes in three different versions.

According to Lik Sang's very own web site popularity rankings, the clear leader of the pack is Shiba & Friends, followed by Chihuahua & Friends and Dachshund & Friends.

Import Experience:

When you start the game, you will have to choose the breed and if you want a male or female puppy. The first think you'll have to take care of, just like in real life, is finding a name for your dog. You'll have to use the voice recognition feature to tell the dog its name, and try to make him or her remember (this can take a couple of times). When a light bulb shows up, the dog is usually in the mood to learn a new voice command. One of the next things will be to teach the "sit down" command and so on. After that, it is basically completely open what you'll be training your dog next. Shaking its tail or "shake paws". You can also take a walk to the park and buy a Frisbee on the way, or meet and play with other dogs.

Please note that Nintendogs is using the internal clock of the Nintendo DS system. If your dog is too tired after playing for a couple of hours, you have to turn off your NDS for a day and give her some rest. After playing for too long, your dog might also get a bit impatient and unwilling to learn new things.

Nintendogs is an entirely open-ended experience with a lot to discover over the life of the puppy, which is something that's incredibly hard to gauge after merely a few hours of play. At the very least, this is one title to watch. Beautiful graphics, fun voice recognition, and it's just too darn cute to resist.

While the Nintendogs menu is nearly entirely in Japanese, the visual clues in the game it's not hard to figure out how to get started - as you can see on the screenshots below. Import Gamers have definitely had more difficult titles to deal with, and it's still a lot of fun playing with even if you don't speak Japanese.</BLOCKQUOTE>