When first introduced, the press referred to the Sims games as "god games" because the player controls other people and their circumstances. The Sims 2 Pets continues that tradition, turning what is an expansion pack on the PC to a full game on the Wii.

For the uninitiated, in a Sims game, you play a combination of parent and god, sometimes having to tell your sim (simulated person) to go to the bathroom, sometimes buying a new dog dish, sometimes sending him off to work in an AMC Gremlin in a carpool and guiding his girlfriend all day instead. Think of it as reality TV with mind control.

The game has many amusing moments. I enjoyed the descriptions of the items you can buy, like a catalog written by The Onion staff, and the open-ended nature of the game leaves many possibilities. The animations are often amusing, like the energetic jump into bed and frolicking in a fountain, and I still haven't decided whether to scold the dog for marking the fire hydrants. Neighbors walking in and out of the house and the phone ringing at 4:45 A.M. made the town a bit surreal. The game's opening tutorial is helpful as well, especially when the game rental company doesn't include instructions with the game. :\

Controls are simple enough for a teenager to handle, and plenty of onscreen help will point you where you need to go to keep your sim happy. The games makes full use of the nunchuck controller with a decent camera control and options for control methods.

While the Sims games have been insanely popular, the amusement wears off for me fairly quickly. Much of the game just feels like chores to me. Washing the dishes in a video game is more fun than in real life, but only slightly, and a mini-game to get them clean would make it more compelling. That said, the game offers different neighborhoods with different experiences, so you can literally play forever and never run out of things to do.

This is not a game you'll buy for your family. It's a single-player game, and you can only have one saved game at a time, like Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS, so don't buy this game to share. Various subtleties in the game will make it inappropriate for younger gamers, like watching your sim in the bathroom (image scrambling keeps the game from being M-Rated) and just the complexity of managing daily life and all its responsibilities.

If you're a die-hard Sims fan and would like to try it out on the Wii, buy it. You'll love it. If the thought of an interactive reality show intrigues you, rent it and see what you think. If your kids want a pet, and you want to give them a taste of the real responsibility necessary to own a pet, this will make them want one all the more. If you're looking for something that's fun for the whole family, get Animal Crossing instead or try MySims.