Customer Reviews

Pet Pals: Animal Doctor

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this game at Target, in desperation: I needed a Mac game to entertain my 7 year old while on vacation, with no time to do any research or to wait for an order. I looked at it skeptically; my daughter begged. I hoped the award seal on the box was a good sign.

I quite like it. We played it together for many hours, following the guidance to help a variety of animals: dogs, cats, a turtle, a fish, an iguana, a rabbit, and even a tarantula. It's a good learning experience, and it engaged my daughter in thoughtful problem solving rather than leaving her frustrated and grumpy. Even though I'm fairly experienced with animal care, I found it interesting to play as well. There's a fair amount of reading to do, using real veterinary words, so it's a little over her head on her own. I had to read some of the case notes to her, but I enjoyed it and I expect with just a little more time, she'll be more familiar with the vocabulary and confident enough to read it herself. She needs more reading practice, and she's highly interested in following along.

The game does a good job of being matter-of-fact and professional, asking you to select the three most pertinent, professional questions to ask, handling injections, rectal temperatures, and stool samples with a minimum of fuss. It will present the cases with info on the normal pulse and temperature for that species, then ask the doctor if a particular reading is high, low, or normal. The cases seem well chosen to help educate about the care of the various species and to help compare and contrast appropriate care for different animals. We had a rabbit with a hairball, and we learned that rabbits cannot vomit, that hairballs are life-threatening, and that rabbits are poor surgical candidates. We removed an abcess from an iguana in minor surgery, which was just the right amount of 'icky' to help get the feel of the real thing.

We played the game a mac running Mac OS X 10.5.2, without any system glitches. We did encounter some program bugs when shaving a surgical candidate - on one dog we were told to "shave the abdomen" and no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't get it to actually shave the abdomen. We went ahead and scrubbed and injected anyway. We lost some points, but we were able to continue. So far we've put about 6 hours of game play time and there's still a lot to explore.

The program takes about 15 minutes to install, but once installed, you don't need to insert the CDs to play - something I really appreciate rather than expecting a child to handle the CDs (or having to take them on trips).

I've been looking for good games in this age range, and I've been disappointed more often than not. This one is a winner.

My daughter loves animals so this was a perfect game for her. It is very realistic except for the grooming which I am sure would be difficult to simulate. She enjoys trying to analyze what is wrong with the pet and treating it.

I love this game, it's fun and educational! Well, actually the name of this game used to be "Petz Vet" but I guessed it just changed! Anyway, you can do so much cool stuff and all the stories are fun!

This is a fun game. It can be challening at times, but is overall pretty easy. The voice-acting is atrocious and annoying, but the graphics are good. My main problem is there is pretty much no replay value. Once I beat it (in a few hours) I never played it again.

I really like Pet Pals Animal Doctor, because it has lots of different kinds of real veterinarian tools, and it has MANY sick/injured animals to treat (dogs, cats, iguana, bullfrog, clown fish, turtle, rabbits, etc.). All this makes it a not only fun program but an educational 1 too. Another cool feature is a zoology quiz with 149 questions. Also there is an encyclopedia like thing that has lots of information about all the different kinds of animal you treat. GREAT GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This software is fun but does have difficult vocabulary for my 7 year old. The concept is engaging and the play educational. I am sure this game will please an older child (3rd or 4th grade level) adequately.

A great game while you're playing it, but definitely has a shorter shelf-life than you might want. For the $$$, not a bad buy, though.

I bought this for my granddaughter, an avid animal lover, for Christmas. When we tried to install on my computer, I found that it requires a legacy version of QuickTime so had to uninstall my current version to make it work. Only then did I realize this game is dated 2006. Should have been a tip-off that the software might be out of date. Next time, I'll check publication date before buying!

My 7 year old daughter loves all animals and already wants to be a vet. I had high hopes for this game after reading other reviews, but we were disappointed. The game play is too difficult for even a bright 7 year old. An 11-year-old cousin was able to work it well, but when she did, the game just wasn't that much fun. My 7 year old daughter was looking on and had no urge to say "let me try" after she understood the gameplay. My daughter has not played the game in the past month since that disappointing first day.
The problem is that there isn't much room for creativity in Pet Pals which is what makes games enduring favorites. The tone of the game is very serious, everyone likes some levity. How about having a pets in the waiting get into some mischief?

The game is too much like schoolwork: you must tend to the animal with the 'correct' remedy, and like a slot car in a track, there is no opportunity for kids to explore, make mistakes, or have fun. Rather than rote remedies why not let the child administer the wrong remedy and then let the customer come back angry - that would be funny and engaging.

Possibly Pet Pals might be both easily navigated and challenging enough for a VERY narrow window in a child's life, but with the lack of creativity I doubt it.