Others say...

"great game"
hamsterz is a really fun game. your hamster has a baby in 2 months. buy stuff for your hamster. do your name at the begining and what you look like. get your kid this game it is really fun buy a hamster a hamster wheel i am 6.

"Boring "
I bought this product for me and my 6 year old son because we own a hamster. The game is very limited to what you can do. It says there is a lot of stuff you can buy it but there is never anything avaliable in the pet store when we go to buy stuff. It really just has food and water and a cage but none of the cool toys are two story houses it talks about. Also, from what I can tell your hamster doesn't have babies to take care of either. Very boring not a lot to do. I kept playing hoping for more but have lost interest. So has my 6 year old!

"If you only buy one virtual hamster game this year, it should be this one."
Hamsters! Is there anything they can't do?

If you answered "yes, there are a number of things they can't do," you'd be correct. "Petz: Hamsterz 2" simulates the limitations of our rodent friends quite nicely. They can't speak, their available color options are limited, and while their built-in behaviors are not as numerous as those of mice, they can do a lot more than than invertebrates such as worms and other insects. Go hamsters!

Where "Petz: Hamsterz 2" fails is in its missed opportunities:

1. It doesn't capitalize on its "urban" sounding name, which despite containing two terminal letter "z"s to indicate plural, does not contain a single hip-hop reference.


2. It doesn't acknowledge the 10-year anniversary of the "Hampster Dance," which was an array of animated GIF files that first appeared online in August 1998 and was copied by dozens of pretenders. It is unclear to this reviewer whether the omission was deliberate or due to copyright and intellectual property disputes. Either way, it's a darned shame.

Perhaps the inevitable "Petz: Hamsterz 3" will remedy these oversights. Personally, I'd like to see armed "hamsterz in da hood" to the sped-up theme to Disney's Robin Hood. I know for a fact there is unmet demand for video games featuring rodents carrying firearms, as evidenced by recent next-gen "Sonic the Hedgehog" spin-offs.

Criticisms aside, this is by far the best hamster simulation I have played in this year, this decade -- dare I say, ALL TIME? If you, your child, or an elderly dependent likes rodents, but not the feel, odor, of risk of hamster-borne illness, this is a required purchase!

"Simple, but fun"
I purchased this after playing my daughter's Horsez 2 game. Overall, it is fun, but it is very simple. For the most part, if you feed and water the hamsters, they will be happy and you'll accumulate a lot of stars (the stars are used like money). My biggest complaint is that there isn't a lot to do and there are options for things like adding a second story to the house, but it is never available when I go to the pet store. In all, the pet store selection is extremely limited. It would be more fun if I could build a large house with lots of accessories.

"Loving it"
This was a gift for my son and he plays it so much that he hates to put it down