When this game first came out there was so much fascination around it and I think it was one of the main reasons why people bought the Nintendo DS was to be part of this new craze. I remember when Tamagotchi was a huge thing and this was sort of taking the idea of this and bringing it to a more interactive element and also making it a game that you can interact with.

Nintendogs was releaseed on the Nintendo DS in 2005, it was both developed and published by the country as well. It was a real time pet simulation where you basically choose what puppys you want to own and then look after them making sure they are well throughout the day. In the game you can feed them, play with them and train them as well. The one thing that made this game immersive was that the DS had a touchscreen which allowed you to use the pen to stroke the dog as well as clean them etc. If you didn’t look after your dog well then the pups would react and then ignore you when you would turn on the game.

The game won critical acclaim and won many awards including Associated Press Best Game of 2005, PC World 2006 Innovation Award and even PETA Best Animal Friendly Video Game of 2006. In the first week of release in UK and Europe it had sales oer 250,000 copies.

This was one of the main games that made me want to get a Nintendo DS, back in 2005 this was a really innovative idea for a game and I wanted to be one of the people playing the game that everyone else was raving about. When I did eventually get the game it did not fail to impress – it was so good and like everyone else I became addicted.  It was such a good game! I always loved having a labrador and I think i had about 4 more dogs – writing this article makes me want to sit down and play it all over again.

Did you ever play it? There was a cat one as well but the one I really wanted was a rabbit one but there never was any demand for it.