You know the old adage that says you can never have too much of a good this? It’s a crock, especially in the world of video games. Developers sometimes unfortunately get stuck in ruts, with one coming up with a successful style of game, and others deciding to try and one-up the original or, in some cases, simply put out a cheaper product and try to ride the first title’s coattails. Granted, not all imitators are bad games, but no one can argue that having any gaming genre flooded with “me-too” titles is a good thing.
One of the worst offenders has to be the animal-raising genre. Virtual pet sims have been around for a long time, but it has been only in recent that we’ve seen an explosion in them, and it’s all Nintendo’s fault. Few can argue that the gaming giant created a winner when they first released Nintendogs for the DS in 2005. However, their success and the unique features of the DS and the Nintendo Wii helped crack open the floodgates. Since then we’ve seen endless Dogz, Catz, Hamsterz and Horsez titles, not to mention GoPets, Purr Pals, Fantasy Aquarium, and even Disney Friends. The pet-training sim genre also spawned a sub-series of veterinarian games, with some borrowed elements from the likes of Trauma Center: Under the Knife. The sad thing is, most of the pet-training games play almost exactly alike, with the only major difference being the type of virtual critter the player is raising. It might work business-wise, keeping development costs down while playing on the inner animal lover in gamers everywhere, but when you start seeing titles that feature the likes of dolphins and wild tigers, not to mention sequels (if you can believe it), then you know it’s definitely gotten out of hand.
