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IGN Review of Catz
A third of the world loves cats. This, according to the highly scientific and wonderfully precise results of a recent Everybody Votes poll. Though the majority of the planet claims dogs to be their pet of choice, the 36.3% pro-kitten response rate is encouraging for Ubisoft as the publisher releases this game, Catz. Catz is a virtual pet experience, the first on the Nintendo DS to focus on felines. It's a game closely modeled after Nintendo's own Nintendogs – to an even greater degree than any of Ubisoft's other recent Petz-brand releases – but, like every third-party attempt at the genre so far, Catz falls short of achieving that same level of immersion, interactivity and fun.
It may have been a project doomed from the start. No offense to a third of the population, but baby kitties just don't offer as much play potential as young, rambunctious puppies. They're different animals entirely, and in being true to those distinctions, Catz cuts out a lot of opportunities for more interesting gameplay.
Take the toys. Where you might employ a Frisbee with a dog for a game of fetch, no cat would ever leap into the air to grab a flying disc in its mouth. Cats are relegated to lesser amusements – small balls with bells inside, stuffed mice and the like. And that's what you'll find here, as Catz offers those items and more, but none worth more than just a few moments' worth of your, or your cat's, attention.
And it's hard enough to keep a feline's focus fixed as it is. Catz authentically presents its available pets' lacking attention spans, which, again, is admirable in its accuracy to real-world cats, but just doesn't translate into fun. On adopting your new kitten from the pet shop at the beginning of the game, you get to assign the animal a name – standard stuff. On bringing your new pet home and starting to play with it, you can speak its name into the DS microphone to call it over to you – standard again. But not so standard is that even when you clearly speak in calling the creature, it will often ignore your summons. You'll have to try multiple times before you find success, which is frustrating. A technical problem with the game recognizing your speech, or simply a proper representation of cats' independent "I'll come if I want to" natures? Either way, it's annoying.
And either way, you'll find yourself fighting against the game as it almost actively tries to keep you from having fun. Pressing the Y Button sends you into Cuddle Mode. The camera shifts, zooms in low, and gives you a close-up view of your kitten that better facilitates petting the animal with the stylus. For about five seconds. Inexplicably, Cuddle Mode's close-up view cancels itself almost immediately after you activate it, sending you back to the standard, pulled-back birds-eye camera view of the greater living room environment. Similarly, if you try to pan the view around the room to check on your cat's food dish or locate an off-camera toy, the game will pull against your repositioning and rubberband the viewpoint back to the cat, every time.
All the while you'll likely be listening to the email alert jingle that sounds off every minute or so, as Catz also continuously sends text messages to your in-game PDA. The emails are sometimes home to helpful hints about raising kittens, and sometimes contain assignments. Here the game finally finds some direction – other non-player character cat owners will contact you and ask you for favors, like coming over to their home to take photographs of their own kittens. If you choose to accept these missions and succeed, you'll earn coins to spend in buying new toys, costumes and food for your cat, and also new decor and furniture for your home.
You'll also earn Kitty Cardz. They're a simple set of cat-fact flash cards containing tips on kitten care or funny feline facts. These you can collect for yourself, or trade with friends. Catz supports two-player multi-card play, and allows you to exchange Cardz and saved photographs of your cat with fellow cat lovers.
©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
It may have been a project doomed from the start. No offense to a third of the population, but baby kitties just don't offer as much play potential as young, rambunctious puppies. They're different animals entirely, and in being true to those distinctions, Catz cuts out a lot of opportunities for more interesting gameplay.
Take the toys. Where you might employ a Frisbee with a dog for a game of fetch, no cat would ever leap into the air to grab a flying disc in its mouth. Cats are relegated to lesser amusements – small balls with bells inside, stuffed mice and the like. And that's what you'll find here, as Catz offers those items and more, but none worth more than just a few moments' worth of your, or your cat's, attention.
And it's hard enough to keep a feline's focus fixed as it is. Catz authentically presents its available pets' lacking attention spans, which, again, is admirable in its accuracy to real-world cats, but just doesn't translate into fun. On adopting your new kitten from the pet shop at the beginning of the game, you get to assign the animal a name – standard stuff. On bringing your new pet home and starting to play with it, you can speak its name into the DS microphone to call it over to you – standard again. But not so standard is that even when you clearly speak in calling the creature, it will often ignore your summons. You'll have to try multiple times before you find success, which is frustrating. A technical problem with the game recognizing your speech, or simply a proper representation of cats' independent "I'll come if I want to" natures? Either way, it's annoying.
And either way, you'll find yourself fighting against the game as it almost actively tries to keep you from having fun. Pressing the Y Button sends you into Cuddle Mode. The camera shifts, zooms in low, and gives you a close-up view of your kitten that better facilitates petting the animal with the stylus. For about five seconds. Inexplicably, Cuddle Mode's close-up view cancels itself almost immediately after you activate it, sending you back to the standard, pulled-back birds-eye camera view of the greater living room environment. Similarly, if you try to pan the view around the room to check on your cat's food dish or locate an off-camera toy, the game will pull against your repositioning and rubberband the viewpoint back to the cat, every time.
All the while you'll likely be listening to the email alert jingle that sounds off every minute or so, as Catz also continuously sends text messages to your in-game PDA. The emails are sometimes home to helpful hints about raising kittens, and sometimes contain assignments. Here the game finally finds some direction – other non-player character cat owners will contact you and ask you for favors, like coming over to their home to take photographs of their own kittens. If you choose to accept these missions and succeed, you'll earn coins to spend in buying new toys, costumes and food for your cat, and also new decor and furniture for your home.
You'll also earn Kitty Cardz. They're a simple set of cat-fact flash cards containing tips on kitten care or funny feline facts. These you can collect for yourself, or trade with friends. Catz supports two-player multi-card play, and allows you to exchange Cardz and saved photographs of your cat with fellow cat lovers.
©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved