12 cert, EA PS3 (also Xbox 360, PC, 3DS) ***

This is, as you'd expect, fairly similar to The Sims 3, but this time out you can play as the pet (on console, a cat or dog). Chase your tail, learn new tricks and pick fights with the neighbour's bad-tempered cat. You can set up your pet from scratch, giving it personality traits just like the human characters. As in real life, you don't have to like the people you live with. You can take great pleasure in making others' lives hell. Bark at them, chase them, destroy the furniture and suck up afterwards – everything real-life animals can do. The game retains some old annoyances, such as the intermittent load screens, but what stops it from getting slightly tedious is the odd karma-fuelled surprise, the mysteries to solve around town and treasures to find. And the novelty factor of getting inside the head of man's best friend. Or worst enemy.