I recently had the opportunity to review Go Pets Vacation Island for Nintendo DS. The first thing that interested me about this game is that it was created by a mom who wanted something fun and creative for the family to enjoy. The second thing I loved is that you simply can’t go wrong with a game about pets!
I got to spend a couple of minutes with the game and thought it was very cute and fun, but the real reviewers were my almost 10 year old son “Salesman” and his best friend, our neighbor boy “C” so I’ll let them talk about the game!
From the kids’ perspective [Mom's questions and Notes about the game are in brackets]:
It’s really fun, it’s kind of like a sims game. You start out just playing the game, you create yourself by giving a little information and setting up your character and how it looks.
You can adopt a pet and take care of him and you can even take care of other people’s pets. Shells are money and when you take care of someone else’s pet you get shells. You can play games on it too. Like darts, dominoes, and Go Wok a great cooking game which is very fun but challenging. [Note: I spoke with C's mom and found out that he spent a lot of time playing Go Wok. She asked him what he was doing and he excitedly answered her that he was cooking! She was very surprised that it was so fun for him and held his attention for so long.]
There are some places in the game that are locked until you have played other areas first. [Note from Mom: I think this is a great way to keep a game interesting and extend the "new" life of a game! By opening areas as they go, children have new sections and activities to tackle all along the way.]
The Iku messages are also fun where you can send a message to other players and they can send messages back to you. And you can get presents. [Note: Iku's are similar to a text message, but only use icons like emoticons, etc to keep the game completely safe for children!]
You can even pet your pet. [Mom: How?] There’s a hand in the game that you can use to pet them :). You can dress your pet too. You purchase clothes using shells and you can dress your pet up. You can buy other things with shells too, like art supplies and toys. There’s a place that has a hanger and you go to the cart and it will show you all the places to shop. [Mom: You mean like a mall] Yes, kind of like a mall, but it’s a Pet Mall!
That pretty much wraps up what he had to say about it. Notice that you don’t see any mention of all the educational things they do as “activities” in the various areas of the Island. The game is set up to be complex, but totally kid friendly. They don’t realize they’re learning as they are playing 
This game is an interactive title, so once your child’s DS is connected to your wireless network they can enjoy all of the features that have been built into the game and interact with other online players. It’s like a virtual universe for children complete wth a social network in a completely safe environment where all of their information is protected. The only thing communicated online are the Iku’s [emotions and simple concepts]. They can pass gifts to other players and play with other childrens’ pets, but that’s as far as it goes.
I love that this game is simple and fun for children. I sometimes get frustrated with all of the games that are marketed for children that are complex and questionable in content and nature. Like I said at the beginning … You just can’t go wrong with Pets :) For more information about this game, you can visit it’s website at http://www.gopets-ds.com/.
