There are very few games that can hold my interest for more than a couple weeks, much less an entire year, but Animal Crossing practically forces you to keep playing. It goes beyond being a mere simulation and becomes a full-fledged commitment. You'll quickly become familiar with the personality quirks of your town's inhabitants, taking note of their relationships with each other and perhaps even becoming a bit down if they move out. It's not just the townsfolk that are demanding, either. There are plenty of other chores and special events to keep you busy for a good, long time.

Animal Crossing: Wild World is, of course, the long awaited sequel to the original GameCube hit, and it keeps a lot of the features that made the first game such a relaxing experience. There are a lot of new goodies added, too, but a few glaring omissions make me long for the console version.

If you've not played Animal Crossing before, it might strike you as a bit odd at first. It truly is a small town simulator. The game begins with you moving into an animal populated town where you are immediately hooked up with a starter home by local merchant/slum lord/raccoon, Tom Nook. During the first half hour or so of Wild World, you're forced to work off a debt to Nook as a sort of tutorial of what kind of things you can do in your town. From there, however, you're on your own.


The Game About Nothing

Sure, there are several goals to accomplish, but since there's no ending to the game, you're not required to do any of them if you don't want to. If you're an anal collector, there's a museum that you can fill by collecting fish, bugs, paintings, and fossils. If fashion is your thing, you can create your own designs that you and your town's inhabitants can place on their shirts, walls, and walls (among other places). If you lean towards interior decoration, you can concentrate on earning enough bells (the game's currency) to build a bigger house and furnish it with rare furniture. Then there are your neighbors, who are always willing to chat with you and offer up errands to do.