The Parent Bloggers Network

Remember when we were kids and the Atari 2600 came out and we all thought it was the coolest thing ever to move a little triangular “rocket” around a 13″ black and white TV screen and shoot oddly shaped rocks, all in 2-D of course?

Now our kids can choose and name and dress up vibrantly colored virtual pets on a 46″ plasma TV screen - or, even more amazing, do the same thing on a pocket-sized player while sitting in their ergonomically designed booster seat.  And they think nothing of it.

In fact, it’s second nature to them.  As this mother admitted: “My three year old can kick my butt on the DS which makes me both proud and scared.  She figures out these things way faster than me and that blows my mind.”

As bloggers, we’re some of the earliest adopters among mothers.  We know what’s out there, both the good and the bad.  But we still prefer to introduce our kids, especially the younger ones, to games that include more fun and less fracas, and Littlest Pet Shop fits the bill perfectly.

The premise is simple: Care for the pets, play games, earn “kibble”.  Of course, accessorizing the little creatures is a big hit: “Dressing up their virtual characters happens to be all 3 of my daughters’ favorite part of most any video game, really.“  The games are a hoot too: “Six’s favorite mini-games were Nut Fest, in which the player must prevent nuts from falling off of trees and onto his or her pets, and Sky Ride Collection, in which the player moves a tram up and down the side of a mountain.”

The mother whose three year old outscores her on the DS explained: “What appealed to me was the games aren’t all time-dependent (which can be frustrating for a child) and the ones that are, allow for very generous time allotments on the easy setting.  By far, her favourite games are the colouring challenge where she uses the stylus and a palette to try and match a picture of one of the pets and the digging game, where she searches for hidden treasure before the clock runs out.  Each time she completed a task, she either received a ribbon and/or coins to spend on her pets.”

This mother marveled at how well her kids got along while playing: “Although it is a single player game, the kids really enjoyed working together and helping each other select fashion accessories and create names.”  Another blogger agreed: “It’s a thing of beauty, because, miraculously, no one fights  - they just watch and root for each other.”  It would also make a great playdate game: “I’m thinking this is an excellent game to pull out the next time he has a playdate who IS into Littlest Pet Shop. (Sometimes another kid’s enthusiasm rubs off on the boy.)”

Not only did the kids like Littlest Pet Shop, the bloggers did too.  This mother enthused: “What did I like about this game?  There was no violence. No hitting, no pushing, no banging or punching…”  Another agreed: “I still find virtual pet games preferable to many of the other kinds of computer and video games out there. That’s because the player’s goal is a prosocial one: to care for an inherently weak and vulnerable creature.”

Littlest Pet Shop is just a fantastically cute game, no bones about it: “I think it’s been really fun to see their furry little friends come to life and explore their happy little virtual homes.”  Another blogger concluded: “I found this to be a good, wholesome game with multi-age and gender appeal. It’s one that I’ll be keeping in the house for various visitors. (And I might break it out myself as well!)”

But don’t just take it from the parents - hear what the kiddos have to say themselves.  Two little girls each wrote their mother an email:

“My 10 year old daughter is convinced I will review this incorrectly since I haven’t really played it much so she emailed me her own review:

“I liked that your pet shop keeps growing and you can unlock new games and pets. My favorite game is Furry Feast. It is so much fun! The only thing I would change is that I wish that after you adopt all the pets you still have more goals.”

And when she did that, her 8 year old sister wanted to be sure I got all the pertinent details too, so she emailed me her own little review of it:

“I love it. You start with 3 anamils and you name them and you can play games and you can unloc games”

So there you have it. A game so good it made both my daughters volunteer to write about it so I wouldn’t forget anything or not tell exactly how much they loved the game.”

And check out this little girl’s video review:

Littlest Pet Shop Review from Liz Thompson on Vimeo

That ought to settle it right there.  If you’ve got kids who love pets, and you’ve got a Wii or DS, there really should be a Littlest Pet Shop game under your tree this year.

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Tags: blogger reviews, kids games, Littlest pet shop, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Video Games

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Elementary School, Games, Kids, Pre-school, Pre-teen, Toys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.