Preview - The Sims 3 Pets (PC)

Our Sims 3 Pets for PC preview is now online, click read more below to read! :woot:

So now you probably already know we were invited at the behind-closed-doors Sims presentation at the Gamescom. Graham Nardone gave us a lovely demo about The Sims 3 Pets on PC! Unfortunately, like I mentioned in my other articles as well, we were not allowed to take pictures, hence the lack of pictures in this article. I have used some pictures, but those are photos of artworks I took on the game floor itself.

Something girls have been waiting for, for many years. Well not all girls. I have never asked for this but, MANY other girls have... There are horses in The Sims 3 Pets expansion pack! And the horses do look amazing, I have to admit this. Like the other pets, you can fully customize horses like you can customize Sims. You can choose the color of their hair, you can choose several mane styles - for example a mohawk, as well as the horses tail - a braided tail is especially awesome, there are several marking layers to play around with, there are patterns you can choose from and you can add figures to the horses body. You can rescale, reshape, recolor and rotate these shapes. So you can place them anywhere on the horses body. Besides all of this, you can adjust body parts and the way the body itself looks. So you can shorten the neck, or make it taller. And you can change the belly size. Stuff like that. Graham showed us a horse that looked like a Zebra (imagine that), but I'm sure you can also make a horse look like a mule or donkey. It's truly amazing. I can see myself play around with this. I assume the other big pets like dogs and cats are also highly customizable like the horses. Basically you can create any kind of pet with the functions I mentioned above. And that's what will make your pets unique. A big deal in The Sims 3 Pets on PC is the fact that you can finally control the pets! The pets are not just added to the family. No, you can really take control of the pets and have them interact with Sims rather than only have the Sims interact with the pets. This is wonderful. We no longer need a cheat to be able to do this. You can see the life through the eyes of your pet. A whole new experience, which makes the game just more fun altogether! The pets now have motives, memories, they have their own bio and personality, they have their own opportunities and all that, but they don't have lifetime wishes. Other than that they are similar to Sims now, except that they're animal Sims and not human Sims.

Obviously, since this is a pets expansion, there will be some animal loving traits for our Sims! A few examples of some of the new traits for Sims are dog lover, cat lover, horse lover, animal lover. And these special traits unlock social interaction when talking to other Sims. So your animal lover Sims can chat about animals with other Sims. There isn't an animal hater trait. Graham was very clear in this. Animals are innocent creatures, of course. And there will certainly not be something like animal abuse in the game, well there is neglecting the animals. If your pets do not take proper care of their pets, the social worker will come and take the animals away. There are no new careers for Sims in this expansion pack. And as far as the pet careers go, this is a console only feature. There are also no new deaths in this game, not for Sims, nor for pets. Pets can only die of old age. There are no pet related deaths for Sims.

Besides the major pets - horses, dogs and cats - there are some minor pets. I have quite a list of these! There will be turtles, lizards, birds, rodents, snakes, guinea pigs and baby squirrels. No rabbits. Don't ask me why. Whatever animals there are in the game, Sims are never allergic to them. Pets can also have traits. After the closed demo I was able to see all the traits for dogs. Together with ChEeTaH from The Sims Zone and Wouter from Sunset Valley Times I translated and tweeted them live: adventurous, aggressive, pig, friendly, genius, hyperactive, hunter, noisy, neat, calm, loves swimming, shy, snob, loyal, independent, playful, afraid of water, destructive, easily afraid, and the last one I found particularly hard to translate... not destructive... errr... doesn't destruct things? Oh dear destruct just became a weird word for me. You get the idea. There are a lot of traits for pets. One more thing I should mention is that we tried translating the traits from German to English. And these will probably not all be the final English names of the traits.

The new town in The Sims 3 Pets for PC is called Appaloosa Plains, I hope I spelled it correctly. It is a mid-western ranching style community neighborhood. And it's the perfect place for Sims with horses. Of course other pets will also love this place! The town also has a cat shaped lake/pond and a dog bone shaped pool. All pets love drinking water out of lakes, but only dogs can swim in the water. Pets can travel with other Sims or just on their own. Some pets can hop along in the taxi but it makes perfect sense this doesn't go for horses. You can however go places riding your horse and your Sim can also go for a walk with the dog. The new town has a lot of fresh content and there is lots to discover.

One of the venues is the cat jungle. On this lot cats come together and play with each other, in and around the cat jungle gym. There is also a dog park, which is a social meeting place for dogs. But Sims can also go here to play with their dogs, play catch and so on. There are plenty of plains for horses to gallop around, but something special we've seen is the horse ranch. On this ranch Sims can practice skills with their horses. Such as the riding skill, racing skill and jumping skill. The training is done on a special track with cool obstacles Sims and their horses have to jump over. One of the obstacles includes fireworks, a Sim's behind can get burnt! You can also create your own race course. The skills are needed and can be used in different competitions, including show jumping and racing. You cannot bet on these races, however you can win cash prizes, trophies and even get your name in the local newspaper! Last but not least Sims can breed horses on the ranch, as well as buy and sell their horses.

At your Sims homes, you can now build real barns with horse stables, since the team added actual barn doors and box stalls! Horses can use their box stalls to eat, drink, sleep, and if they really want to and have companion, woohoo in there! The competitions take place in rabbit holes, meaning we can't actually see the competition while it's happening. But we can see a score board during the competition. But the normal horseback riding can be done anywhere. And you can also train the horses at home.

Initially pets don't know any tricks and don't have any skills. From the moment they are part of your Sims households, you can train their behavior and teach them tricks. Dogs have a lot of tricks and they can learn. Cats however only have the hunting skill, they don't have any other tricks like dogs do. Sims and dogs can attend a tricks exhibition, where they can show the tricks to other Sims and earn money. One of the special skills dogs and cats have is the hunting skill. Graham mentioned (about dogs) that if they're really good at this skill, that they can even bring back a date for their Sim. Hahaha I'd like to see that happen! Usually each expansion pack in the Sims series has a special creature. In this expansion pack, it's the unicorn! Unicorns are magical, in case you didn't already know. The unicorn Graham showed us, was located at the edge of town. It looked all angelic and sweet at first. So sweet it instantly reminded me of the cuteness of My Little Pony, especially because of all the stars and hearts on the body. That was the good side of the unicorn. Good side lol. That side of the unicorn was colored bright white. Then Graham turned the camera around and the unicorn was devilish black, with red flames on its body and everything. That side of the unicorn was also a bit evil. The unicorn had a bit of an attitude! When the unicorn started to run, you could see a rainbow trail surrounded with sparkles. It's Nyan Unicorn!

Unicorns are magical, they can start fires and drive Sims out of town, curse Sims so they'll have to endure mysterious woes and disaster. But then they can also bless Sims and let plants grow wherever they go! And, drum roll, unicorns can teleport! Unfortunately Graham didn't want to share with us how we can get a unicorn. So this will remain a secret until either someone from EA tell us, or even after the release when someone plays the game enough and finds out. Ahhh, too bad. Spoilers! Sims have new lifetime wishes, one of them is to add a unicorn to the household! As far as households go with pets. It's a bit complicated. As we all know, normal Sims households cannot contain more than 8 Sims. However, a Sims and pets household can be a total of 10. There cannot be more than 8 Sims, and there cannot be more than 6 pets. The limit in total of Sims and pets combined is always 10. So you could have a household of 8 Sims and 2 pets, or 6 Sims and 4 Pets. But 4 Sims and 6 pets is also a possibility.

Children - and therefore obviously also toddlers - cannot ride horses. Teens and older can. There are some friendly social interactions between the kids and pets, but I think this is mainly with dogs and cats. Oh and probably also the minor pets. The Limited Edition for The Sims 3 Pets on PC is obviously different from the regular edition. It has a special Pet Store where Sims can go to buy items - accessories and objects - for their pets. You won't be able to buy pets in the Pet Store though, as there will be plenty of other ways to get pets.

The game will be released on October 21st this year. I will most certainly buy it. I am going to pre-order the limited edition, as I usually do with the games! I would like to thank Graham Nardone for coming to Europe to the Gamescom to demo the new expansion pack. It's awesome! And I would like to thank EA for inviting me to the behind-closed-doors presentation. I really enjoyed it! Thanks!