Some incremental upgrades over The Sims 3 aren't enough to make this a must have title.

The Sims 3: Pets is an expansion to the base Sims 3 game that released on consoles in 2009. This version of the game, as the name implies, revolves heavily around Sim Pets, creatures that can not only inhabit your dwelling space but can also be directly controlled, just like a normal sim. There's also a new town hub involved, along with the ability to become a Mysteriologist, and track down different mysteries hidden around the town. There are a few new jobs and other minor additions included as well. But the core gameplay of Sims 3 remains pretty much the same.

This isn't what I'd consider a substantial upgrade to the original Sims 3. The city you get to explore this time out, Appaloosa Plains, certainly has more locations to explore, shop, and work at, but there's also a number of recycled locations. The trappings and scenery might be different, but the overall effect is pretty much identical. The addition of pets is interesting, especially considering you can assign them traits, and give them some personality. But their skillset is so limited compared to humans, and you'll find them wanting to fulfill the same wishes over and over again. I can't tell you how many times I got the wish that wanted me to just bark at a random object, but it was definitely recycled plenty of times. They're less interesting to have direct control over than they are if you just control a human Sim and play around with them.

For the human side of things, there aren't a lot of new additions to talk about. You can tackle a number of career paths, including criminal, athlete, and so on. There are a number of new home furnishings to buy, new areas to explore, and you can also become a Mysteriologist. The Mysteriologist allows you to explore mysteries around Appaloosa Plains, which the game keeps a journal to help you track. Most mysteries will require certain skills to complete, which help drive the campaign forward with a little more focus than most Sims titles are known for. This was actually the addition to the series that I enjoyed the most, as it constantly gave me new goals to work towards instead of the seemingly random wishes that would pop up. Of course, you still have the lifetime wishes and goals to complete as well, and pretty much all the core content from Sims 3 is present here.

The in-game store that you can use to share content you've created is present once again, tied into EA's online service. This does mean that you'll be dealing with an online pass for the game, but so far I've found the service to be pretty reliable. I've played a few games that involve EA's servers that haven't always been particularly steady or reliable, but that isn't the case here. There's already a ton of player content up to check out, with some interesting breeds and colors of animals to enjoy.

One other addition to the game included with Sims 3: Pets is some limited Kinect support. This is entirely voice driven content, allowing you to navigate or interact with Sims via voice commands. I feel like this feature is pretty much useless overall though. You still need to control the majority of the game with the controller; in fact, you often need to highlight actions with the controller before you can issue the voice command. I fail to see how this simplifies or enhances the game, since I can just hit A instead of trying to get my Kinect to recognize the command "Compliment Looks". The voice command stuff works, sure, but it does nothing to enhance the game for me.

Besides that, you'll still be creating Sims, building households, fulfilling wishes, taking on jobs, and creating relationships. Your Sims will still age, marry, give birth, and die. There's plenty of content here to keep you busy for hours on end, and the control set-up is pretty intuitive for a PC to console port. The game isn't a visual powerhouse by any means, but there's a fair amount of detail tossed into the houses and buildings, and you can zoom in extremely close to get a good view of the Sims inhabiting your world. There's also a lot of NPC Sims to interact with, and a fair number of secrets to uncover. You can even go ghostbusting, as the game will constantly let you know about paranormal activity to investigate, which I found pretty fun.

Basically, it's a Sims game. I think it's well put together, easy to control and geared for players that enjoy making up their own fun. It has a little more focus this time out thanks to the mysteries you can solve, but I didn't find the addition of pets to be all that thrilling. The voice command feature could be completely absent as far as I'm concerned, and I'm not sure that the additional content featured here is worth another $50 for console owners. I'd definitely suggest renting before you buy, but I enjoyed it enough that I'm sure I'll revisit it again in the future.