Don't enclose the poor mutt in walls or virtual PETA will come after you.
Electronic Arts has announced The Sims 3 Pets, which much like The Sims 2 Pets, will allow players to love their virtual furry friends on X360, PS3, PC, and 3DS – "the builder who creates the ultimate pet sanctuary, the achiever who solves all the mysteries in town, the experimenter who has a lone Sims and a house full of cats". Because if you're lonely in real life, you get to be lonely in video games too!
Certainly, there are certain advantages to owning a pet, like "a single guy in the dog park picking up women" and, this time around, you can even create, customize, and play as horses, which can be trained to race or jump hurdles or just be a form of cowboy transport around town. Players may also create new breeds, like between the Australian Shepard and the Main Coon, and share their biologically manipulated creations of cuteness with the world.
For the X360 version, players can use the Kinect to control their pets via voice command. For the 3DS version, walking in real life earns Karma Points and players can gift pets to other The Sims 3 Pets owners. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 players can also obtain interesting breeds such as the dog tiger retriever, a dog panda chow, and a cat skunk birman.
I hope this means I can finally create what comedian Dan Cummings calls the Chocolate Squirellador – half squirrel, half labrador, all kick-ass beast.