G-pinions

After twenty minutes with Animal Crossing: Wild World, I was ready to put it down and say goodbye to my town for good. It was the same Gamecube game that has mystified me, drawn me in, and compelled me on and off for a season or so before putting it down for lack of tangible progress. And then a zebra gave me a carpet. I ran home as fast as my little feet could carry me, heart atwitter with the promise of home decor. It's things like this that this game does oh so right - a level of very small, regular reward, coupled with the feeling that your presence and actions in this tiny, ugly world have a weight. It's funny, but the action/consequence draw and relationship is often far more rewarding than Fable ever was, and so much more simply.

Though, to defend my earliest thoughts, this is the exact same single-player game. Sure, there's constellations to make, a pigeon bartender to get coffee from, a new outdoor camera and a couple other miniscule additions, but if you've played the first I promise you'll be a bit stunned at how far Nintendo went to not add anything new to the game. It can be a very simplistic, sparse world, and how tough would it have been to throw in a couple scavenger hunts, an arts n' crafts store and a few mini-games? They're damn lucky the game is as charming and addictive as it is, or people might start to notice that this is the least evolved sequel in years. I suppose I must be fair and mention that I haven't touched the wi-fi yet, but for a feature that many people won't be able to use, the rest of the game should stand tall on it's own.

It is completely perfect for the DS though. I'm not a big fan of running around using the touch screen, but menu navigation, inventory management and most everything else is butter. It's also the most perfect game I can imagine to play for ten minutes at a time. Hop into town, catch a new fish, mail a letter, and you're done for the day. You will always want to keep playing, but you'll often accomplish as much in a few minutes as you will in an hour.

Finally, for now, the temptation for deviance and mischief is just far too great in this innocent little world. With a town bulletin board for everyone to read and shirts to make that everyone might wear, there are quite a few ways to make your town funny, as childish as they are. Just last night the same carpet-giving zebra asked me to give her a new catchphrase (which the animals say at the end of every conversation) that wouldn't make her sound so dumb. So now she walks around saying things such as "The weather is so nice tonight, duuuhh...". Classic. More to come as I continue to pay off my damn house.