Do you love animals? You have to love animals, everybody does! Maybe this is a better question; did you at some point in your life want to be a veterinarian? If you did, then boy do I have a game for you! Well … maybe not the most exciting game, but Pet Vet: Paws & Claws is a serviceable handheld title.

The concept of Pet Vet isn’t exactly brand new. When Nintendogs released in 2005, many titles tried to follow suit and jump on the bandwagon with similar games. First, there were games such as Dogz, Catz, Hamsterz Life, and Horsez that wanted to share the limelight. Outside of those four from UbiSoft, Electronic Arts tagged along with releasing Sims 2: Pets. It is apparent that the pet life is one of the most desirable lives video gamers want currently, at least for their handhelds that is.

Pet Vet is a little different in that you become a veterinarian with your very own clinic. Pet clinics are not always the most ideal place to take your pets since they’ll end up costing you an arm and a leg afterwards. As the vet, it’s your duty to nurture the animals that come through your office back to health. I may be out of whack or something, but I don’t find the excitement in playing a game that simulates what it would be like if you were to have that job; especially that of a veterinarian profession.

Starting out, you’ll begin treating smaller animals such as guinea pigs and birds. After learning the tricks of the trade, you’ll be able to start nursing horses back to full health. The other animals included are: dogs, rabbits and cats which are all a mainstay at pet clinics nationwide. You can’t walk into a vet office and expect there not to be a cat or dog in plain sight.

There are some customization options open for those who want to build their clinic from the ground up. You are able to choose the style of kennels you want to hold your patients (pets of course) in. If you ever wanted to be a carpenter, there is the possibility available to expand your buildings. This in turn offers more room and services to the animals that are situated in your facility. If you don’t have enough money to improve your clinic, you can always go to the bank for a loan to pay for the improvements. Other responsibilities include buying food and medicine for the pets staying at your clinic.

There are over 20 cases / ailments within the game to try your best at being a vet. Running dogs and playing fetch will help them get into shape for their owners. For the horses, riding them and making them active also will aide them into the right direction of becoming healthy. Each and every animal has a different task to help them work back up into becoming healthy again. Basically, the best way to heal and help the pets is to play with them and give them “love”, which basically means providing them attention.

For Nintendo DS features, the voice recognition is used for Pet Vet. The animals in the game will react and respond to your voice commands. The voice command is nice to calm down your animals and ease their tension when treating them. Not too many of the other Nintendo DS capabilities are used to their full advantage.

Pet Vet isn’t the most original title in 2007 for the Nintendo DS. It follows the tracks laid down by games before it. The interest in pet video games may be worn out already with an overload of similar games. Be wary when you pick up Pet Vet, it won’t offer too much replay for gamers. Outside of your first play through, you’ll be hard pressed to pick it up again.

Gameplay: 5.4
Been there, done that. That’s the best line of description I have for Pet Vet: Paws & Claws. You may have already played some form of this game with so many other pet simulators out there.

Graphics: 4.5
There is nothing special to see here. Riding horses couldn’t be blander than what Pet Vet provides. Not much excitement happening here with the graphics.

Sound: 5.1
While they do provide the ability to talk to your animals, the audio work in Pet Vet isn’t up to par.

Difficulty: Easy
Pet Vet is on the easy side of the spectrum with not much assistance needed to coach you along the game. You tell your character what to do in particular situations and they follow the directions. You don’t have full control over petting and helping the animals.

Concept: 5.0
The game only takes an hour to beat and it’s not that far off from the predecessors that came out before it. The whole raising and nursing your pets isn’t the most original idea since games have been doing it since 2005.

Overall: 5.3  
The retail price of $19.99 shouldn’t hurt your pocketbook when making your selection. Pet Vet: Paws & Claws is directly aimed at children and at adults. I don’t see too many teenagers in high school picking this up unless they are looking for their next fix after becoming bored with Nintendogs.