Since The Sims was released two and a half years ago, there has been Livin’ It Up, House Party, Hot Date, On Holiday, and now Unleashed. Each has cost twenty pounds, and each has added about ten minutes of new buttons to the game. And people have been buying them all. Is it you?

It is? Sit down. So far, you’ve spent £110 on The Sims. No, come on, listen. Lift up your chin and listen as I say it. One hundred and ten pounds. Are you really going to make it £130?

As with Hot Date and On Holiday, Unleashed adds a brand new button to the top of your main menu. Buttons for un-bought add-ons are left ominously greyed out, with disapproving messages alerting you to your gross oversight in purchasing.

The button unleashes the usual story: Simsville will have changed to include some shops that sell you animals, pet related paraphernalia, and rather oddly, a jazz and pool joint, and a farmer’s market. Other subtle additions include the option to have your Sims do some gardening, fifty new jobs (in five careers), and the usual stack of new skins and houses. But really, the thing we’re all here for are the pets.

Once you trundle your digital friends to the new parts of town, you will be able to run about shops excitedly, stroking the cats, tickling the tummies of dogs, and chatting with the parrots, until you discover the future furry addition to your family. And then when you bring it home, you can teach it tricks, take it to pet shows, starve it to death, whatever you like. And indeed, the latter is completely true – no SSPCA will come to the rescue of an abused animal – it will just die. Bring on the crying children.

Like every other add-on, Unleashed makes a minimal difference to a game that we are now all surely getting tired of. The best part is the option to design your own shops and cafes, but it’s not enough. Add-ons don’t fix the ridiculously long times it takes to do ordinary tasks, they don’t fix the frantic struggle to get to work two days in a row, and they certainly don’t remove the frustration that sets in after about an hour, leaving you wanting to see what happens to your Sim if you fill a room with smoke alarms, and remove all the doors.