Animal Crossing Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Thank god I got this as a Christmas present. If I hadn't, I'd be bouncing off the walls all through the school day waiting to play this dumb game.
Why a dumb game? Well, the concept is amazingly simple. You live in a little town (mine was christined Jamaica by my little sister in honor of our upcoming trip to the actual island) in a little house. You can fish, dig for treasure, hunt bugs, and do favors for neighbors (all of which are cute little animals that vary depending on which type of town you ended up with). You have to pay off the mortgage for your house. You can chat it up with residents, visit the local museum, or go shopping. If that gets boring, you can always decorate your house with the seemingly unlimited amounts of rugs, wallpapers, and furniture. Sounds kinda redundant, huh? It's not.
What really makes this game fun? Three things. First of all, the detail in this game is amazing. The towns residents don't just interact with you, they interact with eachother. Several times a day I'll walk into an area to see one character whisper something to another, resulting in either one or both of them getting extremely angry (you can't talk to them while they're like this!) They'll also give eachother presents, and gossip behind eachother's backs. Also, if you share the town with another player (I share with my sister) the town's residents will tend to favor one of you over the other (e.g., a hippo named Lulu loves bragging to me about my sister, showing me her letters, and gushing about favors she did). Secondly, the town is bursting with surprises. You may start a conversation with a character only to have them suddenly give you a gift. New characters may appear, to move in or just visit. My favorite is a disgruntled mole that shows up and spazzes every time I restart the game. Because how would you feel if someone just started your whole world over again? Finally, the real time aspect of the game is great. On Sundays a warthog comes through the town selling turnips. On Saturday nights a guitar playing dog cranks out tunes. On holidays, there are celebrations (for example, I recently got a notice about a New Year's bash at the wishing well). Want to visit a resident? If it's past their bedtime, you're out of luck.
So it sounds like a kid's game? No way. It appeals to little ones (Preschoolers will adore the simple things, like shaking trees, collecting seashells, and moving furniture), grade-schoolers (the museum curator spews interesting facts, and it's always fun to interact with town residents), and teenagers and adults (there's a surprising amount of strategy involved!). What's also great is that you can never "beat" this game. Like The Sims, you basically play until you get sick of it.
I strongly reccomend this game to ANYONE of ANY AGE. Very addictive and endlessly fun, this game is worth your money!

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Product Description:
Animal Crossing lets you cross over into a whole new world where you experience real-time exploration

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Animal Crossing: Wild World Review

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(More customer reviews)Animal Crossing was always a sleeper hit on the gamecube.I hope you at least know about it, but the premise is simple:you're moving into a new town inhabited by animals.You have no money, and get a new place with a hefty mortgage.Now that you have shelter, you have to live life by exploring your town.

How you do that is up to you.You can run errands for your animal friends, communicate with them by way of post, fish, catch bugs, shop for furniture, spend hours creating your own outfits or wallpapers, find/buy them, meet the random guests who show up in your town, work on landscaping, collect fossils and other pieces for a museum, it just never seems to end.

Does this sound boring to you?Well, then, maybe this game isn't for you.It's slower than most games, and meant to be played maybe half an hour a day once you get in the groove of things.There's no action, just a lot of talking and exploring the ins and outs of this complex little game from nintendo.So consider yourself forewarned, but also know that this is a fan-favorite for a reason.If you approach with an open mind, you could easily be just as hooked as the massive fan base.

Wild World, the DS update of the Gamecube original, takes this premise and expands upon it to create a similar but richer experience.The town is basically the same, but the animals have been revamped to be smarter, more complex, and new types are available in your town.The items are changed to include a larger number, with some similar ones and some completely new ones.Storage in your house has increased, and you can make your house much bigger than the original.

In addition, you can now have hats and accessories to alter your character beyond the simple clothing.There's even a barber shop at Nooks (the town store) that you can eventually unlock.

In terms of multiplayer, now if more than one person lives in the town, they will share the same house with separate beds, and each will split the mortgage on the house.The increased storage space per character (up to 96 items of storage) helps keep this from causing too much clutter, and it increases the cooperation aspect.Cooperation and communication have always been the main point of Animal Crossing, and now with Wild World, it becomes even more important.

With the stylus, typing messages is much easier and faster than selecting letters by moving the cursor with the analog stick in the gamecube version.Designing fabrics is now just a matter of drawing them, easier and more intuitive than in the original.In fact, the whole game can be controlled easily with the stylus, making for a more fluid and intuitive experience.

One of the biggest additions is the online aspect.Yes, Wild World is online via NIntendo's WiFi connection, just like Mario Kart.Animal Crossing is a bit more limited in that you need to have friend codes to go online, but it isn't hard to find these on any video game board (nintendo runs their own forums that do this, though I'd suggest GameFAQs.com or one of the many specialty Animal Crossing sites).This allows you to go to their town, and you go to theirs, and even interact together on the same screen.It's much bigger and more ambitious, especially if you know plenty of people with the game.While the idea of friend codes might be limiting, it keeps you from having random malicious gamers run in and ruin your town, helping you control the flow of visitors into your town in a respectful way.

The complaints that the previous reviews seem to have are about the holidays being changed.I don't see why this is an issue?This has become a worldwide game, and it would be impossible to include all the major world holidays, and so instead of making the game based on Japanese holidays (which might be expected) or American ones (which would have no point) Nintendo decided to give the world a universal set of unique holidays that would make sense to people in Australia or Korea or Russia or Germany just as much as it would the people here.It's a pretty narrow view to think that the whole world would enjoy a Christmas or Thanksgiving themed day and items when they might not even fully grasp the concept of the holiday.This is a more mature, wider-reaching game, and requires those changes to make it accessable to the world-wide audience.

Simply-put, Animal Crossing Wild World is a vast improvement on the first game, if only because of the stylus control.But with all the new features, it's the kind of game that will encourage you to play it every day for a year or more, growing more and more involved with it.It's worth a look at, to see if it's for you.If it is, you won't be disappointed.

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Product Description:
Animal Crossing: Wild World takes you into a real-time virtual world where an entire village is waiting to be explored. Whether you want to decorate your home, catch bugs or fish, or just chat with the characters in your village, there's always something to do. Days and seasons pass in real time, and you can visit the villages of online players -- even if they're a thousand miles away.

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