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Game Media

By Brad Cook

Some people rely on their pets to get them through difficult times in their lives. Others don’t understand the allure of pet ownership under any circumstances. Sims are the same way, and Pet Stories illustrates those differences: Alice Whitt is facing the loss of her house, unless she can come up with 120,000 Simoleons to pay the bank, but at least she has her dog, Sam, to comfort her. Meanwhile, Stephen Loyal would like to focus on his career as an executive chef, but his life is turned upside down when he must take care of his cousin’s pet cat, Diva.

The Sims Pet Stories

As in The Sims Life Stories, Pet Stories features those characters’ lives in Direct Story Mode, where you steer your Sims’ fates according to the plotlines. Alice inherited her grandparents’ house in Garden Heights and is determined to keep it, despite the rotten Diana DeBore’s attempts to foreclose on it. She just needs to figure out where to come up with all that money when she’s an unemployed starving artist. Luckily, Garden Heights is full of dog lovers, and Alice could get all the Simoleons she needs if Sam wins the local dog show. And if Alice can give him the proper training first.

Over in the desert suburb of Mesa Flats, Stephen wound up taking care of Diva to make up for missing his cousin’s wedding. He’s not fond of animals, but he must do the best he can while planning the catering for the annual Midnight Masquerade Ball. On top of that, he’s dating both Rachel and Erin, trying to decide which one is right for him, but a newcomer named Gordon Fetching is doing his best to ruin those efforts. Diva only adds to his misadventures.

Keeping Busy

As in the Sims 2 expansion pack Pets, Pet Stories tasks pet owners with training their animals, teaching them commands and tricks while scolding them for bad behaviors and praising them for good ones. You can’t control your pets, but they come with predetermined personalities, and they develop positive and negative relationships with adult Sims. The game features over 70 breeds of dogs and more than 30 breeds of cats; Sims looking for low-maintenance pets can choose from fish or a hamster-like Womrat.

Like their owners, Sim pets can embark on careers that earn not only Simoleons but also gift codes that unlock all kinds of goodies. Those items can be shared with characters in The Sims 2, if you have that game’s Pets expansion pack. Pets can also produce offspring, another ability they share with their owners.

When Sims and their pets get tired of hanging around the house, they can look for fun elsewhere. Garden Heights and Mesa Flats, along with a third neighborhood called Arbor Falls, feature community lots with stores, pet training facilities, restaurants, parks, and more. Sims can travel there alone or with companions, meeting others during their trips and forging new relationships. They can buy new stuff at the stores, but don’t forget that you can also download bonus items at the Pet Stories Web site.

Continuing Their Stories

Stephen’s and Alice’s stories continue beyond their conclusions, or you can select a pre-made family and move it into a home in any of the neighborhoods. You can also create your own human and pet Sims, customizing them to your heart’s content, and you can even register new breeds of cats and dogs. If you’d rather not use an existing lot, build your own house and move your new Sims, or an existing family, into it.

In addition to streamlining the gameplay mechanics by introducing keyboard shortcuts for important commands and making relationship development easier, Pet Stories was designed for quick sessions. The game runs in a window, allowing you to check e-mail and surf the Web while playing, and its graphics were optimized to run on laptops, so you can take Stephen’s and Alice’s drama anywhere. Pet Stories even features a laptop battery indicator.

No matter how you choose to play the game, you’ll learn a lot about human — and animal — behavior in Pet Stories. And don’t be surprised if your pets teach you a thing or two — as the wise Winnie the Pooh once said: “Lots of people talk to animals. Not very many listen, though. That’s the problem.”

Game Hardware
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Cat scratching couch.

Cat Scratch Fever. Make sure you scold kitty for doing that.

Dog sleeping on bed.

His Master’s Dreams. Alice’s love for Sam even occupies her dreams.

Sims talking at the pet store.

Polly Wants You Two to Can It. Two Sims become friends at a pet store.

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System Requirements:

 

Cheat If You Must

Pet Stories uses many of the same cheat codes found in The Sims 2. As in that game, hold down the Control, Shift, and C keys at the same time to open the cheat code box. Type a code and press Return to activate it. To quickly return to a previously-entered code, press the up arrow. To stop entering cheat codes, type “exit.”

Note that you shouldn’t use a comma in any codes that ask for a number.

The Codes

motherlode — get 50,000 Simoleons

kaching — get 1,000 Simoleons

unlockcareerrewards — unlock all of the selected Sim’s career rewards

aspirationpoints(#) — replace “#” with a number (but keep the parentheses) to give the selected Sim that many aspiration points

aging off — keep all Sims on the lot from aging; type “aging on” to restore it

maxmotives — max out the motives for all of the Sims on the lot

aspirationlevel(#) — replace “#” with a number between 0 and 5, with 0 dropping the selected Sim’s aspiration meter into negative territory and 5 maxing it out

slowmotion # — replace “#” with a number between 0 and 8 (keep the space after “slowmotion,” but don’t worry about any parentheses), with 0 being the slowest game speed possible and 8 being normal game speed

 
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