• News
• Games
• Features
• Reviews
• Previews
• Releases
• Archived News

• Comics
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Wallpapers

• Blog
• Forums
• Chatroom
• Staff

Animal Crossing: Wild World

Get a life? No thanks, I’ve got two already.

Animal Crossing is certainly one of the hardest games to describe, but by all means one of the easiest to enjoy. Colourful, sweet, vibrant, tranquil and rewarding: all these and more encompass a game that captures imagination while delighting every day on every level.

The basic concept of Animal Crossing: Wild World is simple: you are a young human –male or female, who moves into a village overflowing with bright colours, sweet sentiment and loveable animals. When you arrive, you haven’t got a Bell to your name –Bells being the unit of currency in the world of Animal Crossing. Slowly, you adapt to your new lifestyle, learning to fish, catch insects, plant flowers, grow trees and interact with the surprisingly intelligent local animals.

If none of this sounds appealing to you, I urge you to try it anyway: at the heart of Animal Crossing is a very innocent and charming game that never fails to suck you in. Time passes in your village just as it passes in the real world: when it’s 1pm in the real world, your animal friends will be having lunch and frolicking among the grasses and trees: in the depths of winter, snowdrifts and snowballs gather on the ground, inviting the creation of philosophical snowmen and late-night trips to see your friends by the glowing lights of their little houses.

In mechanical terms, Animal Crossing is an extremely advanced version of the Sims: you collect furniture and trinkets from the local shop to adorn your home. House too small for your stuff? Then sell enough fish, bugs and fossils to pay off your mortgage –while remembering, of course, to donate any rare finds to the museum. On your first trip around the village, your animals will begin to learn about your behaviour, remembering your birthday, giving you silly nicknames and asking you to perform errands in return for gifts and money.

At the tailors shop, you will find all you need to design your own wallpaper, carpet and clothing patterns to show off to your friends. If you design and display something good, chances are, the villagers will begin to wear your fashionable designs and compliment you on your fabulous taste. Fishing, though potentially dull and bad-smelling in real life, becomes something of an obsessive activity when playing: every shadow in the water could be that elusive and rare fish that the museum needs or sells for a ton of Bells.

In the DS version (if you didn’t already know of the GameCube version a while back), the animals have become much more intelligent than their console counterparts: they now have far more things to say to you, far more topics of conversation to discuss: some will set you challenges to catch rare bugs and fish before they do; others will ask you to help complete a furniture series for their house, proudly displaying the items you give them and rewarding your kindness with more furniture, clothes, carpets and wallpapers.