Petz: Nursery (Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi)

What’s here is fine. Kids will likely enjoy feeding and grooming their pets and watching them grow. The problem is, there’s not much to it, and much of it is very similar to what can be found in other Petz games. In fact, the cart riding minigame here is virtually identical in feel and control to the skateboarding minigame in Petz: Dogz Talent Show. Ditto for the food stirring game.

What’s more, the game’s shtick—that players can download newborn animals from certain other Petz games—seems almost to be proof that the primary reason for this game to exist is simply to make parents buy more Petz products so that they can interface with one another. There’s no reason the few bits of original play and functionality in this game couldn’t have been included in other Petz games to make them slightly deeper experiences. As is, Nursery comes off as a product designed to lure unsuspecting players and parents into buying yet another Petz product.

Online interaction: This game allows children to upload pictures of their animals to Petz.com, where they can be shared with friends. Kids will neither see nor interact with any other players during this process.