The Sims Pet Stories Impressions

The Sims Pet Stories is the second entry in the Sims Stories series (February's Life Stories being the first), and this offshoot franchise of EA's megapopular sim-life game attempts to make the otherwise complex Sims gameplay more accessible to those who haven't played the series before and may only have experience with more casual forms of gaming. Stories' primary method of easing newcomers into the experience is by providing a couple of self-contained storylines per package that will give you specific objectives you have to meet to move the plot along. You can always stop pursuing these goals in order to mess around with the Sims' traditionally open-ended gameplay, but at least you'll always know what you need to do next if you start to feel like the game is lacking in direction.

In Pet Stories' case, one of the two "directed stories" casts you as Alice, a woman who's tragically about to lose her home. So she enters her Dalmatian into a local dog show to try to scare up enough money to save her house. You'll have to train your dog and perform various other tasks over the course of the story's 12 chapters in order to see the plot through to a successful close. The game will contain another storyline, about a successful executive chef named Stephen whose world is turned upside down when an acquaintance's obnoxious cat comes to live with him. Sounds like the premise for a new fall sitcom on the CW, perhaps, but this should do the trick for those who felt the Sims was a little too open-ended and aimless in its previous incarnation.

Like all present and future Sims Stories games, Pet Stories will attempt to appeal to the casual gamer with a host of minor features that will make it easier to play on the go. The game is said to be "laptop-friendly" in that it features a battery meter that tracks your power reserves and is also able to be interrupted when you put your machine into sleep mode by closing the lid. Furthermore, the game runs in a window by default, so you can still keep an eye on your e-mail or IM client while you're playing.

It's worth noting that in addition to the two directed stories, Pet Stories features a free play mode that lets you get into classic, open-ended Sims gameplay in the style of The Sims 2. If you find the Stories games' more-focused gameplay to your liking, you're in luck: The next game in the series, Castaway Stories, is due toward the end of this year. Pet Stories, meanwhile, will be out in June in North America.