Some of these skills can be levelled, allowing for more valuable items to be discovered or better quality bugs for food, for example. Dogs on the other hand will spend their idle time digging holes in your garden, resulting in discovering items that may be sold for money. Cats are able to groom their fur to keep their hygiene levels at a reasonable level, can hunt for prey to keep themselves fed and will even claw at Sims who they don’t have a healthy relationship with. The introduction of pets is a perfect fit for the series, a multitude of interactions and unique abilities perhaps even providing more interest than that offered by Sims. I opted for a Sim, Dog and Cat mixture to see what each would offer, although I would recommend going for two Sims and one pet to be able to progress through the game more speedily. Players are capped to the creation of only three Sims, which can be any combination of the available Sim, Dog or Cat, however you are advised against choosing an all-animal family as this will essentially eradicate any advance in regards to income that you receive. You’ll continually strive towards reaching the top of their chosen career ladder and fulfilling their ‘Lifetime Wish’, or even the complete opposite and seek satisfaction by seeing your Sims fail. You are more than likely familiar with the concept of the game, which sees you guide either an individual or group of hapless Sims through everyday life and catering for their every whim. Electronic Arts have seemingly listened to the criticisms aired towards The Sims 3, and implemented features and functionality that makes best use of Nintendo’s hardware. As can be expected from the title, The Sims 3: Pets once again turns to a selection of loveable canine and feline creatures to sprinkle necessary variance, yet does the Nintendo 3DS version suffer the same shortcomings endeavoured by its predecessor? The beautiful sunny coastal town of Port Abel is the setting for the latest console iteration of the immensely successful life-simulation series, The Sims.