|
 OK, OK, OK. It looks, smells, and feels like a kids game. You spend your time running around in a village with cute animals, doing favors for them, talking with them, exchanging letters with them. Or you can hunt bugs or fish or plant flowers and trees. The most violent thing you can do is chop down trees. And yet, it's a fun, compelling game.
The game is called Animal Crossing. You show up in a village of your own naming, and can get your own house complete with its own mortgage. You earn part of the money (and learn the ropes of playing the game) by working for Tom Nook, owner of the store and the person who loaned you the money. Eventually, you're on your own.
|
 There are lots of things going on. In addition to the search for bells (the money in your village), you are buying furniture and outfitting your house. You are getting rated by the HRA, and a very simplified feng shei is involved. There are fossils to be found, sent off to be analyzed and either sold, given to the museum, or kept as decorations. When you pay off your loan to Tom Nook, you can get a larger and larger home. |
What's most interesting is that the game takes place in real time. If you start playing at midnight, most of the villagers will be asleep, and the store will be closed (but some of the best fish come out at night to be caught). The weather changes with the date, there is snow during the winter and very hot days during the summer. And holidays are celebrated in the village. All the animals are atwitter about Halloween coming up, where everyone dresses up as a pumpkinhead and goes looking for candy from each other. If you can spot the mayor, you get a special gift. Unfortunately, Tom Nook hasn't put the candy out for sale yet in my village.
It's also a multiplayer game without an online component. If you have multiple people with access to the GameCube, up to four people can live in the village. Only one person can be active, but you can leave notes for each other or give gifts through the mail. If you know others nearby playing Animal Crossing, you can temporarily borrow their memory card and go visit their towns. Not all things can be found in one village, so travelling is useful.
 This is an open ended game. The best description I saw was Sims for Kids, though obviously I don't think the fun is limited to Kids. It has its flaws, there are only so many things that the animals can say so conversations can get a bit repetitive. It's also begging for an online component. But the charm of the game, and the constant discovery of new things, gets it nine out of ten Ooooos from me! Oh, and make sure you attend K.K. Slyder's jam sessions on Saturday nights. |
For more details, see the Animal Crossing website. I no longer have things for sale.
|
|
