The Sims 2: Pets

The Sims 2: Pets is the fourth expansion pack in The Sims 2 series of games, as well as a stand-alone game for several consoles. It is published by Electronic Arts. Pets was officially announced on July 26, 2006 and released on October 18, 2006 in North America and via digital download, as well as on October 20, 2006 to the rest of the world, except for Australia/New Zealand, where it was released on October 26, 2006. Aspyr released a port of the game for Mac OS X on November 7, 2006. It was released for the Wii on June 13, 2007. In Australia, one Australian dollar per game sold, from at least 50,000 copies of the game, will be donated to the RSPCA. Unlike the other expansions, this game does not have a new neighbourhood. Instead, new lots (with Sims living in them) are available for placement in the existing neighborhoods

Pets
Sims can own cats, dogs, "womrats" (creatures similar to guinea pigs, whose name is a portmanteau of wombat and rat), and birds. Pets features 72 pre-made breeds of dogs and thirty pre-made breeds of cats. Pets can be acquired in five ways: over the phone, in "Create-A-Pet", in a pet shop, found as a stray dog/alley cat or by having a controlled Sim give or sell a pet to another Sim. Create-A-Pet is similar to "Create-a-Sim", where one builds human Sim characters. In Create-a-Pet, players may customize a cat or dog by choosing patterns and colors of coat, body shape, facial structure, and personality, which determines playfulness, neatness, and intelligence.

Pets have motives like their Sim counterparts. Sims and pets are similar except for the absence of the "Environment" motive, which "Scratching" replaces in cats and "Chewing" in dogs. Sims may also train their pets to do various tricks. However, a new sub-neighborhood is not added in the expansion pack. Instead, the expansion pack focuses almost entirely on pets.

Pets can follow one of three career paths: Security, Showbiz and Services. When pets get promoted, various pet-related "unlockables" are made available along with a code so players can share these items with others. These jobs (if pets do well) can be a great source of money.

Pets have three life stages: Puppy/Kitten (which lasts five days), Adult (which lasts 25 days for cats & small dogs; 21 days for large dogs), and Elder (which lasts 5-10 days). The length of a pet's elder hood is selected at random, however there is an aspiration reward object which will extend the pet's life by a few days with each use.

Pets are able to breed, and doing so will produce a litter. The maximum number of pets in a household is 6. A litter consists of 1-4 puppies or kittens. The number of puppies or kittens is dependent on the number of Sims and pets currently in the house. Players can play with up to eight Sims or six pets at one time, although one can only have a total of 10 Sims and pets in a household altogether Pets, unlike Sims, cannot be directly controlled without the use of a cheat code. A player can view the pet's action queue when it decides to take an autonomous action, but can not tell a pet to do something else. In addition, pet actions can not be canceled. Instead of direct control, a Sim must interact with a pet to increase the likelihood that it will perform or avoid various actions. It is up to a Sim to direct a pet's "learned behaviors" through either positive or negative reinforcement. For example, if a dog decides to relieve its bladder outside, a Sim can opt to praise the behavior in order to increase the likelihood that the pet will repeat that action. A pet's ability to learn certain behaviors is influenced by its overall personality. This also applies to tricks, such as rolling over, sitting up, coming when called, etc., which pets do not perform autonomously.

Werewolves
Werewolves are a type of supernatural creature which the Sim can interact with or even be transformed into. Sims exist as Werewolves only during night hours. A Werewolf can teach a pet faster than humans and can fight against burglars. They might occasionally howl at the moon, howl at player's command, or howl to summon wolves. When a werewolf howls every sim's bladder on the lot goes down halfway. To become a werewolf, players should have many trees, weeds, and untrimmed hedges on their lot to attract wolves, and must build up a relationship with any wolf with glowing eyes (the werewolf pack leader). The pack leader will eventually "nibble" the Sim it was interacting with, causing it to become a werewolf. .

Other features
Sims are able to run pet shops if they have the Open for Business expansion pack. Among the new items with this pack is a modern phone, Atomic Age themed furniture, and items made exclusively for pets.

"Build" mode features a new tool called the "Sledgehammer," capable of deleting various items and allowing one to create diagonal roofs and rotate floor tiles. Another new addition to the Build mode is the ability to drag diagonal rectangular rooms and also to drag out octagon rooms.

Stray animals, including wolves, will occasionally wander onto lots. There is an "encyclopedia of game tips" button located in the Options menu where one can view all game tips. Also, Sims with high creativity skill points can paint art from the player's image collection.

Music
There are many new songs that appear in the original Pop radio station from the base game (besides the originals) in this game that have been converted into Simlish:


 * "Don't Cha" by the Pussycat Dolls
 * "Chemicals React" by Aly & AJ
 * "I Play Chicken with the Train" by Cowboy Troy
 * "Girl Next Door" by Saving Jane
 * "Free Radicals" by The Flaming Lips
 * "Boyhunter" by Skye Sweetnam
 * "The Compromise" by The Format
 * "Turn Out the Light" by The New Amsterdams
 * "Black Shoes" by The Films

Locales other than US English contain more songs:
 * Danish: West End Girls - "Booglurbia"
 * Dutch: Krezip - "Can't You be Mine"
 * Finnish: Roni - "Never Coming Back"
 * French: Kisha - "Sowieso"
 * German: Kisha - "Sowieso", Krezip - "Can't You be Mine"
 * Italian: Finley - "Run Away"
 * Japanese: West End Girls - "Booglurbia"
 * Korean: West End Girls - "Booglurbia"
 * Norwegian: Lene Marlin - "What If"
 * Russian: The Smokebreakers - "Baby Let's Dance"
 * Spanish: La Oreja de Van Gogh - "Dulce Locura"
 * Swedish: Lene Marlin - "What If", West End Girls - "Booglurbia"
 * UK English: Finley - "Run Away", West End Girls - "Booglurbia"

These songs are not played in other locales (including US English), but they can be extracted from the game resources.