Animal Crossing Wild World

Overall Rating:
Genre: Simulation
Christian Rating: 5 of 5
   (excellent)
Gameplay: 4 of 5
   (barely present)
Violence: 5 of 5
   (none)
Adult Content: 5 of 5
   (none)

Animal Crossing is a game in which you live your life out in a virtual town. The series was slated for an American release on the N64, but then later bumped to the Gamecube. You, the player, live in a small town that is constantly growing, do a variety of tasks, and interact with the inhabitants, and other people as well. Even though this game is similar to the Gamecube one, there is enough new content for reason to play this game.

When you first start the game, you are taken away to a taxi cab being driven by an old sea captain, (Kapp'n from the last game), to your new home. On the way he talks to you and asks some questions to get to know you better, and you answer them based on your personality. When you arrive, he tells you to go see Tom Nook, the store owner, and ask him for some help. On meeting Nook, you are given a house to stay in, and a job to pay it off with. This is the start of your new life.

In this game, you do all sorts of things. Some of the activities include fishing, bug collecting, art collecting, furniture collecting, finding fossils, writing letters, visiting festivals, and the list goes on. There is a multitude of things to do that in real life seem mundane, but in this game, actually turn out to be fun. The added ability of using the stylus to control things like the player or your rucksack and writing letters is a time saver, but they could have done a little better job and worked out the controls a little more. Being able to make constellations and seeing them in the sky at night when It's the right time period is also satisfying. Also, you get a slingshot to shoot balloons down from the sky in hopes for gifts. The biggest addition is WiFi multi player . Now, you can connect to Nintendo's free service and get your friend code. Once you have your friend code, you can share it with a friend, and get his, and then go visit his or your town over wifi. Up to 4 people can be in a town playing at the same time. There is a lot of new stuff which makes the game fresh, since you have to be playing it A long time to get the full experience.

The graphics are kept pretty much the same as the Gamecube version. They are at a lower frame rate (the Gamecube is more powerful than the DS), but they still look and work very well for the DS. Screen shots can't do justice to that. In this game, instead of dividing up the town map into acres, its fully loaded with no acre boundaries which is a nice touch. When you run up and down, the world turns like its rolling over the horizon, a really cool effect. So all in all, the graphics are pretty good.

As you stroll through town, you get to listen to some great music which also changes every hour of the game. There is also the ability to collect music from KK Slider and play it in your music players in your house. The townsfolk still use the animal gibberish which is quite funny as it varies from animal to animal. You can also change that if you do not like the gibberish. The sound and music fulfills the game quite nicely.

There is no violence whatsoever in this game, unless you count catching bugs and fish. There is no bad language also, which is a plus since you'd wonder why would they put it in a game like this. Last, there is no sexual content, again you'd wonder why, but its been known to happen in some games. For spiritual content, there is a traveling fortune teller who stops by once in a while, but you don't even have to visit her if you don't want to. Some of the positives of this game are helping out others by doing errands for them, cleaning up after yourself, responsibility, and commitment, which you will need a lot of to stick with this game.

Animal Crossing Wild World is a very good choice for those who are looking for a good game. Its good clean fun that lasts a very long time. It's best to play the game in half hour spurts and to savor it. You obviously get your moneys worth with this game, and it wont disappoint.

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