Ubisoft’s Catz 5 is a sweet little game ideal for young children or very sweet adults (like my wife!).
Basically, Catz is what it sounds like – cats on your computer. There are several distinct advantages to this as opposed to the real thing – no need for a litter tray, no expensive visits to the vet, no shopping for cat food, no need to find owners for new batches of kittens, no cat hair all over the place, etc…
First Impressions
The first thing you have to in this game is adopt one more cats. You watch them as they come onto the screen and see how they react to you when you pet them etc. The first thing that’s really noticeable is the fact that they are very noisy! Whether the sound FX were collected from real cats or human voice actors had a lot of fun creating the noise I can’t decide, but they sound pretty authentic. The second thing you notice is the animation – very cute. And then on to the other rooms, once you’ve decided which cat(s) to adopt, to look after them, play with them, and… well that’s it really…
Interface
The game is fully mouse-driven and works pretty well once you’ve got used to it. Icons appear in a box when you can use them – i.e. different kinds of toys and treats for the cats. You can move the cats around by picking them up by the scruff of their necks, and you have a cat basket to keep surplus cats in as you can only have 2 on screen at a time.
Difficulty
Since the cats can never die it’s impossible to “lose” the game as such, but then there’s no particular winning situation either – you just keep going. Basically you have to try to keep your cats happy, healthy, and encourage couples to fall in love and make kittens (don’t worry you don’t see anything, it’s completely kid-safe!). It can be a challenge to keep more than a couple of cats happy since when they’re left in the cat box they feel unloved and start sulking! Personally I like to at least have an overall objective that needs to be completed in order to win the game, so Catz has a very limited appeal to me. My wife, however, loves it, and it’s certainly easier than having the real thing stuck in our little flat! There is a “Happy Pet” certificate, I’m not sure what the criteria are but when one of the cats in my wife’s game had kittens, she shortly afterwards received one.
There are also 5 sub-games that you can play to gain more objects, for example in an Asian Temple you have to try to get your cats to perform certain tricks, which adds a little variety to the proceedings – but not much.
Aesthetics
The cats are very cute and loveable (everyone say “aaaah…”), and the animation is on the whole good, although a little jerky at times. The collision detection also seems a little off since you can sometimes get cats apparently standing on top of each other or in the middle of a table etc, but this doesn’t happen very often.
Will You Still Be Playing it in 6 Months’ Time?
That depends entirely on whether you take to it in the first place, and I feel that it will mostly appeal only to young children. You can download various extra backgrounds, breeds, etc from the Catz website, or import your own backgrounds – so you could have your kitties playing on your own living room. You can also take “snapshots” of your pets on the beach (one of the supplied locations in the game) or wherever, then put them in a frame in the living room (also in the game, just in case you weren’t sure…) I do tend to think that most people will be like myself and find the lack of any structured gameplay or objective off-putting. But it’s certainly different and the lack of violence is a welcome change from the norm.
Is it Worth the Money?
Again, that depends on whether you happen to like it. I hope that from my description you will have been able to work out whether or not you will – it’s not so much a game as a fairly advanced virtual pet(s) simulator. If the lack of an overall objective doesn’t put you off, or you have young children who like animals, then this could be just the thing. (Your animals can’t die so there won’t be any upset children whose pride and joy Fluffy or Kit has just perished onscreen!)
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Final Ratings
Graphics: - 72% - not at all bad – the cats are cute and on the whole well animated, while the background graphics provided are crisp if a little uninspiring.
Sound: - 70% - there’s the occasional blast of music and the cats are pretty noisy, but at least they sound like real cats – most of the time, anyway.
Playability: - 74% -easy enough to play and it won’t be too hard for even very young children to see what to do once they’re shown.
Longevity: - 20-80% - technically there’s no aim or challenge other than to keep your pets happy, so for me personally there’s virtually no longevity at all. However, if your child (or wife!) likes it then there’s no actual finish to the game either.
Replay Value: - 20-60% - again, for me personally virtually none, but that’s just me. I do think that in the end you just run out of different things to do though.
Value For Money: - 80% - it was very cheap (£10) and as I didn’t really get it for me it was very good VFM.
Overall Rating: - 75% - it’s just SO subjective! Either you will love it or get bored of it very quickly. Thus my 4 stars and recommended rating is really only for children, but I just can’t mark this game down for not being what I never thought it would be. (If that makes sense…) So my overall rating in this instance if for kids, not reflecting my own feelings. (Just don’t expect it to happen again…)
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