Other then Nintendogs, Some of the Best in the Genre

What games in the virtual pet genre are worth you time, and what ones should be sent to the pound.

Virtual pets are your cup of tea, or they are not, but With the popularity of Nintendogs, the market soon saw a increase of virtual pet simulators. Virtual pets are not new, Tamagotchis have been around for more than 10 years, but the sure cuteness of nintendogs mixed with the success of the DS brought new life to them. While non of them have met the greatness of the Nintendogs series, there have been some great games, while it seems like alot deserve the gutter. While there are pet games for other consoles, most do appear on the DS.
Petz Wild Animals Tigerz
The title of the game seems misleading in my opion, for one the game fairs much better than most games in the Petz series(Dolphinz are high on my list, but more on that later), and also there are many more types of animals than just tigers, ermm I mean "tigerz". The game is a fresh, and exciting experience, and is much more than a virtual pet game, the first part of the game consits of what you expect, interactive touching, and playing with baby tigers, but the second part consists of a storyline-infused adventure that takes you around the world to meet and train a variety of different performing animals. The gameplay is unique, the graphics are beautiful, and the story is a fun based adventure full of wacky characters.

Petz Wild Abimals Dolphinz
Like Tigerz, this game steps away from the traditional pet genre full of cats, dogs, and horses, and brings you a unique, and very fun game. As I found out, and the difference between some other of the"z" branded games, this game was developed to be a stand alone game, named Dolphin Island. You choose to play as "Mila", or "Greg, as you take care of a marine creature amusement park currently under construction, you need to care for sea creatures, maintain the park, and train animals. While not too in depth at first, as you progress in the game you end up training dolphins for Sea World like performances, and use the touch screen for other animal performances. The game has a wonderful story, and great characters, which make the game stand out among the other pet games out there. While the graphics aren't as fine tuned as Tigerz, they are still pretty good.

Pony Friends
Not having the story RPG elements like the two earlier, this game main call is it's amount of customization you can do with your horse. The amount of patterns, and colour combination is wide, and when you ad in the amount of saddles, reigns, and horse shoes you can really have a horse different than anyone else. Main gameplay consists of caring for your horses, and a rail photo game much like Pokemon Snap. Don't be turned off by the "pony" in the name, you are dealing with full grown horses.

Also recommened: Petz: Hamsterz 2

Games to stay away from at all costs
Puppy Palace:
Boring game, feeding off the popularity of Nintendogs. No real game play.
Animates
Poor interface,unresponsive, frustratingly slow control, a bad game around. The only thing decent are the character designs.