Summary: This is Hamsterz, made by the Petz people who also did Catz and Dogz. If you've played any of the other Petz games, or any other Tamagotchi-like games of the virtual pet, you basically know what to expect. This is basically a maintenance game, you do some petting, some cleaning, some playing and your reward is your pet feedback. If you are looking for plot or depth, this type of game isn't for you as you can pretty much do everything that can be done in the game in about an hour. But then, I'd say this game is obviously made w/ little kids, girls, and rodent/pet lovers in mind. Myself, I have a rodent fixation and I'd never heard of a virtual hamster game, so of course I had to get it!
When I first started the game, there is nice customization - you get to pick the species of your hamster as well as the color and give it a name. I chose the fattest species, grey color, and named him Honey. Ah, Honey Hamster looks so sweet!
At the start, you get this Anime looking human (?) girl w/ hamster ears named Ham that gives you some quick tutorial tips. Personally, I thought she came across as creepy as a half human, half rodent girl? I'm imagining how she came about... but then I suppose my mind isn't as innocent as it used to be. Thankfully to me, the human/hamster girl was the only cartoony character in the game (aside from mini-games) as the hamsters and the settings are otherwise lifelike looking.
Then, after that you get to play w/ your hamster! The range of activities includes: teaching, cleaning/care, feeding (food and water), playing, mini-games, and going out. With teaching, you can say various pre-selected words into the DS mic which your hamster will learn to say eventually. Unfortunately not with a audio voice, but w/ a speech balloon.
The essense of the game is basically picking up your hamster, petting it w/ the hand icon, and really just sitting back and watching it frolic in the cage by itself. If you don't enjoy games where you are in control of the characters, then this game probably isn't for you. You basically just do a lot of watching to see what your hamster does - run around in the hamster wheel, etc... Petting your hamster is neat as you see it react to your touch and how you do it. If you pet it the way it likes, you'll see it curl, roll over on its back, and look very pleased. Ah, makes me so happy! But if you pet it the wrong way (which I seem to do too often), the hamster will suddenly step close to you and in sad, watery eyes squeek "you frightened me!". I must say that was very heartbreaking to me every time I saw it do that frightened squeek.
With the maintenance part, you go to your hamster's "status" menu and see your hamsters mood, cleanliness, and if hungry/thirsty. You can use the brush icon to brush your hamster till its nice and shiny. It looks happy after I do that and it makes me feel good. You aquire different foods by collecting them in the mini games. Aside from being neat to feed your pet different foods, I'm not really sure there seems to be a difference.
The mini-games as noted are various simplistic touch screen activities (usually sort of cartoony) like a slide puzzle, crane game, memory, etc... All of it pretty easy to figure out. In the games, you are able to collect different foods, and other objects you can add to the cage for your hamster to play or interact w/.
Which means, yes you can customise/expand your cage. You start out w/ a pretty barebones setup, but eventually w/ mini-games and going out, you can find/unlock more things to add to the cage, different cage wallpapers, etc...
Going out is just taking your rodent out of the cage for a walk around the room. Your hamster can find little presents in your room that you can use later.
And that's really it. Fun game, but personally I'd probably only get it if it was on sale. As such a basic game, I'm not sure its worth paying the full $29.99 retail price for.
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