Gentle readers, I truly feel that the Gaming Gods have smiled down upon me this year. So many great games, new books, anime versions of games, etc. are coming out that I just don’t know what I’ll do with myself.

The Scoop

According to GameZone, The Sims 3 Pets is coming out this fall for PC and the Xbox 360. The official site also confirms special editions available for Xbox 360, 3DS, and PS3.

There will be over one hundred different breeds of animals, including:

Dogs
Cats
Horses (PC only)
Raccoons
Deer
Lizards
Turtles
Snakes
Birds
Exotic pets

The game focuses on three main aspects:

Creativity
Playing as your pet
Mysteries

Creativity

You will be able to create the pet by customizing the pet’s coat, shape, pattern, color, ears, tail, snout, eyes, etc. You will also be able to choose traits similar to how you choose a Sim’s traits.

Kinect

To simplify customization, Pets will use Kinect voice functionality. No more tedious scrolling through every possible choice. Now you can say exactly what breed you want and the game will select it.

Playing as Your Pet

You can play as your pet! Make babies, build relationships, and achieve mysteries! According to the Escapist, you can also control their bodily functions, have them get jobs and make you some extra money, and take them out on the town to a park or a bar and have them “Fetch a Date.”

Mysteries

Just like your sims have goals, their pets will also have goals called mysteries. An example is, “help your sim pick up a hot date.”

IMO

I was very disappointed with every single previous version of The Sims: Pets. All of them were traded in immediately. They just weren’t any fun.

However, this new one looks to do what the previous ones should have done: make the pet a part of the household. Actually being able to play as the pet, have the pet have goals to achieve, etc. will add a depth that was missing to the previous games. Add to that the customization available only with The Sims 3, and it sounds like a winner to me!

I will be pre-ordering the limited edition so I can get the extra pets!