Since I finally caved and bought Pete a Nintendo DS Lite for his last birthday, I jumped at the chance to get him a free game to review from Mom Central. The game is called GoPets Vacation Island, and in some ways it reminds me of Webkinz, in that you adopt a pet and then have to take care of and play games with it. Pete thought it was cool that you could pet the animals with the stylus, but for the most part, this game was not fun and interesting enough for him; he prefers more action-oriented games like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Star Wars Lego. He thought that it was "too easy to earn stuff" and wished you could adopt different animals, not just cats and dogs. He also didn't like that you would have to use it every day or else your pet would go hungry (as on Webkinz).
Julie, on the other hand, loved it. Pete let her give it a whirl, and she had a great time playing the various games. She thought the pets were really cute, and she also enjoyed petting and feeding them. She pronounced it "more fun than Webkinz."
So I would conclude that this game is suited more to the under 8-year-old set. To be fair, though, I don't let Pete go online on the DS, so he didn't get to "add a social networking twist," as per the web site, but I still think he would have tired of it soon enough.
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