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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Facebook Game - PetVille Review

It is not surprising to find a lot of Pet games lately in Facebook as nearly every major developer are now in full steam to make their own version. This week we will review into Zynga own version of pet game, PetVille.

Gameplay 
We first start by looking what Zynga has to offer us in PetVille after so many developers has gone where no man has gone before, pet simulators! Now first off we always start the game with the character creation screen and not to my surprise I find this in PetVille.

The pet creation screen is rather simple to follow for any age group. From what I can see, this game was made for the younger audience, but adults may find it rather interesting as well. Nothing too special about the creation screen as you will find your usual gender class, face, body color, eyes and so on. Once you fully customize your character to the way you wanted, the next thing to do is to go to your new home.

There you will be introduced to your new neighbor Nosie as she will guide you to the basic fundamentals of the game mechanics. Those who have played pet games before will find themselves right at home as PetVille has the same mechanics as any other pet games out there in Facebook.

Your pet will be usually in an empty room during the first time you visit it (Minus the flower vase and the small little drawer). Players can then decide what they wish to do with their pets and its surrounding. Other feature in the game that players might notice is the yard. To see the feature, players can usually visit the neighbor house and just get a scroll around to see how PetVille's house arrangement is like.

Once players gather enough cash, player can then take their pets for shopping. This is very well done for Zynga as the menu will take you to different locations in the game. The stores look exactly like shopping malls with various levels and also the accessories that are arranged in proper order. Gone are the days on all the square boxes for this game. However, I do notice that there is a large portion of goods that is being sold in the game that use Facebook Cash (Real World Money) and I think very large number of people will be not be able to afford it or would not even think about it. Personally speaking here, this is getting a bit troublesome lately as a lot of games are now promoting this sort of options to make more money out of the people in Facebook.

Now let us forget about the money part. We will go to the shopping area where you decide to get what you want in the shopping malls. Players can also start dressing up their pets the way they see fit. From shirts to hats and so on! This is rather normal, but some cloths are rather interesting really. If you fancy dressing up as Indiana Jones on your pet, then you are in luck as one of the costumes is available in the shopping mall is design to look like the adventures archeologists.

New feature that I notice in the game is the Pet Personality skills. In this feature, players can train their pets in 3 types of personalities and this will reflect how your pets react to their environments. Personalities are categorized such as creativity, troublemaker and outgoing. Thinking it was fun to make my pet into a troublemaker, I focused all the skill points to it. True enough the next day I visit her, she was thrown to the local pound for making a bit of trouble in the neighborhood. This is rather a fun feature as players may not expect what will happen on the personality they focus their pets on. Points can usually be gain by giving your pets food (Which can be asked from friends or buy with Facebook money)

Mini-game is also made available to players as there are a few types of games that players can jump into like Pop the bubbles blow up or pick up weekly challenges if you feel up to it. Weekly challenges are changed weekly and new challenges will be provided to players to achieve the goal. Players will then have to decide if they wish to play it or just wait for new challenges the next coming week.

Finally, players may find that their pet will tap the screen if no mouse movement is detected on the Flash game. Cute feature if you ask me.

Graphic 
PetVille is fully 3D when it comes to the pets themselves. You can see the pet moves smoothly on the screen as it tries to get your attention or even just doing nothing. The environment and the inventories are also nicely done as all the textures and sprites are well design and colorful to attract anyone's attention.

Sound 
PetVille has a very happy like type of music and your pet will make various kind of noise as he or she goes around and does her usual routine. Once in a while you might even hear birds and cricket singing in the background. This might sound a bit weird especially when you are actually indoor.

Conclusion 
This is a very nice and well designed game that is made for all ages. This game is fully 3D and very easy to play with and people who have played Pet Games in Facebook is recommend to try this game.

I give this a 4.5 out of 5 rating.

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