TGS 2007: Breaking Sega's Dream Cat DS

So far away from home and family, I'm desperate to cling to anything familiar. So when I happened upon Sega's Dream Cat DS at their booth at this year's Tokyo Game Show, I thought this might ease the pain of being away from my three cats. As it turns out, not so much. 

 

First thing's first -- props to Sega for heading into territory Nintendo has been foolish enough to ignore. Based (loosely) on Sega's popular Japanese animatronic creep-fest, "Dream Cat Smile," this Nintendo DS pet simulator is a direct rip off of -- you guessed it -- Nintendogs. From interacting with the cat using the stylus to throwing it a tennis ball, Dream Cat DS is essentially Nintendo's puppy-fetish title, with 100% more purring.

 

While that's not necessarily a bad thing, as you can see, I was able to confuse my demo cat with very little effort. Let's hope the AI routines for this thing are tweaked a bit before the game ships in Japan. But hey, at least I don't have to worry about whether or not its litter is clumping properly.