As well as unique weirdness, every new expansion pack has come with its own cheat codes. "Pets" is no exception to this precedent. Not everyone likes cheats but for the builders among us, they are very useful to allow certain wonders of sim architecture to be built. In this section of the review, we will look through what new cheats there are, adding explanation and comments, and also what hotkey combinations there are.

boolprop ControlPets on
boolprop ControlPets off

By default, although you can see your pets' needs by clicking on them, giving you hints to pass onto their master to give them a command, you cannot control your pets directly. Enabling this cheat allows you to take control of your pets, which can be very useful.

However, it isn't perfect. If a command is already queued, you cannot cross it out. If Fido is fast asleep with other low motives and the town car has come to take him to work, using this cheat will not allow you to simply wake him up and send him on his merry way.

boolprop petactioncancel true
boolprop petactioncancel false

This cheat, if enabled, does allow you to cancel pet actions. In my opinion, this can be very useful if your dog or cat is trying to destroy that §3,000 sofa your sim has just saved up for and bought.

Used in conjunction with the above cheat, you should be able to directly control your dogs and cats and rescind anything that you do not want them to do.

boolprop petfreewill true
boolprop petfreewill false

If you enable this cheat, your sim must command their pets to do everything. This cheat should work well with the ControlPets cheat, but otherwise, you'll just end up with the Stepford Pets. If you have several pets, I do not advise it.

boolprop disablepuppykittenaging true
boolprop disablepuppykittenaging false

This allows your puppies and kittens to stay at that life stage as long as this cheat is enabled. Although there is no cheat for adult and elder pets, it makes me wonder whether the regular sim aging cheat applies to pets as well.

DeleteAllAwnings
DeleteAllFences
DeleteAllHalfWalls
DeleteAllObjects
DeleteAllWalls

Put it simply, they are supposed to do what it says on the tin and reimburse the value of what has been deleted to the sims who live there. In these illustrations, NOT all walls are deleted and I have had no success with DeleteAllObjects.

individualroofslopeangle [15-75]

Once you've entered your angle, open up the Roof Types Panel and while pressing Ctrl+Alt, click on the individual section of roof that you wish to change.

Personally, I really like this cheat. I just don't understand why it doesn't seem to like me. When I save a building that has roofs amended using this cheat, it looks as though it has saved properly from the neighborhood view. However, when I go back to that lot, everything appears to be at the default roof slope angle.

However, I will not be defeated and I will get to the bottom of this ... or should I say the top of it, considering it is about roofs?

boolprop ShowCatalogePFlags true
boolprop ShowCatalogePFlags false

When you click to see the detail view of any object, which regretably does not include walls and floors, it shows from which expansion pack they came. For custom lot designers, this is very useful so they know which EPs are required for people to be able to download and play that lot successfully. It also works with custom objects so you know which object they were cloned from or whether it does require any EPs to work.

Personally, I would have liked to see the same for walls and floors and more of the build mode objects, but you can't win them all. Could you please change this for next time, Maxoids?

For years, I have been moaning on about Ctrl+S not being available for players of "The Sims 2" to allow them to save their game without having to stop what they are doing, go to the Options Page and click on the appropriate icon. This Hotkey combination was a feature from "The Sims 1" and also included in many "other things Sim" including "Sim City 4".

Have they answered this request?

No.

However, this time, they have added a lot of other Hotkey combinations that allow you to do some interesting things.

Ctrl+D gives you the diagonal wall tool.

Ctrl+E gives you the octagonal room tool.

Ctrl+F enables the quarter tile tool, which is something I have only just discovered from this expansion. You are now able to lay floors in quarters with this cheat and rotate them using the "<" & ">" keys. Pressing this combination again disables it.

And finally, just pressing the "J" key without any other key in Buy or Build mode enables the sledgehammer, that handy-dandy tool to help you get rid of things without any fuss.

In my opinion, these are useful and save a lot of kerfuffle, but I am somewhat disappointed that the Ctrl+S one has not yet come back. Assuming three hotkeys were used in this EP and the same are used with each forthcoming EP, it will be reached at EP9.

In general, I do like what these cheats do and also the inclusion of Hotkeys. Maxoids, I don't need to tell you again what I would like to see.

Without any further hesitation, it is time to look at the criticisms and conclusions and our verdict as to whether this EP deserves a place in your installation.