Animal Crossing

5 Responses to “Animal Crossing”

1. Sara Smolinski says:

   July 23, 2010 at 7:04 am

   Review by Sara Smolinski for Animal Crossing
   Rating:
   Thank god I got this as a Christmas present. If I hadn’t, I’d be bouncing off the walls all through the school day waiting to play this dumb game.
   Why a dumb game? Well, the concept is amazingly simple. You live in a little town (mine was christined Jamaica by my little sister in honor of our upcoming trip to the actual island) in a little house. You can fish, dig for treasure, hunt bugs, and do favors for neighbors (all of which are cute little animals that vary depending on which type of town you ended up with). You have to pay off the mortgage for your house. You can chat it up with residents, visit the local museum, or go shopping. If that gets boring, you can always decorate your house with the seemingly unlimited amounts of rugs, wallpapers, and furniture. Sounds kinda redundant, huh? It’s not.
   What really makes this game fun? Three things. First of all, the detail in this game is amazing. The towns residents don’t just interact with you, they interact with eachother. Several times a day I’ll walk into an area to see one character whisper something to another, resulting in either one or both of them getting extremely angry (you can’t talk to them while they’re like this!) They’ll also give eachother presents, and gossip behind eachother’s backs. Also, if you share the town with another player (I share with my sister) the town’s residents will tend to favor one of you over the other (e.g., a hippo named Lulu loves bragging to me about my sister, showing me her letters, and gushing about favors she did). Secondly, the town is bursting with surprises. You may start a conversation with a character only to have them suddenly give you a gift. New characters may appear, to move in or just visit. My favorite is a disgruntled mole that shows up and spazzes every time I restart the game. Because how would you feel if someone just started your whole world over again? Finally, the real time aspect of the game is great. On Sundays a warthog comes through the town selling turnips. On Saturday nights a guitar playing dog cranks out tunes. On holidays, there are celebrations (for example, I recently got a notice about a New Year’s bash at the wishing well). Want to visit a resident? If it’s past their bedtime, you’re out of luck.
   So it sounds like a kid’s game? No way. It appeals to little ones (Preschoolers will adore the simple things, like shaking trees, collecting seashells, and moving furniture), grade-schoolers (the museum curator spews interesting facts, and it’s always fun to interact with town residents), and teenagers and adults (there’s a surprising amount of strategy involved!). What’s also great is that you can never “beat” this game. Like The Sims, you basically play until you get sick of it.
   I strongly reccomend this game to ANYONE of ANY AGE. Very addictive and endlessly fun, this game is worth your money!
2. Jim Heale says:

   July 23, 2010 at 7:28 am

   Review by Jim Heale for Animal Crossing
   Rating:
   The only reason I bought this game was because I heard I could play a whole bunch of classic NES games and even transfer them to my Gameboy Advance. I was a bit annoyed by the first hour or so of play as I was required to name and create a town and character. After that, however, I became interested in the variety of activities I could participate in (besides just playing old NES games). By the time Halloween came and all the characters dressed-up as Jack O’Lanterns and asked me for candy, I was amazed at the amount of fun I was having simply living in this world, which I called Europa.That’s when my 3 year-old decided she needed to start playing. Within a day or two, she had mastered the (mostly icon-based) interface. It was fascinating watching how she enjoyed playing the game – not by any means I would’ve thought. The first week she loved shaking trees looking for treats. The 2nd week, collecting shells and selling them to Tom Nook was her favorite. After that she went into phases of planting flowers everywhere to chopping down pear trees (they’re not as pretty as cherries). She was playing in Europa alongside my character. What she did impacted my game experience and we loved sending letters (with presents attached) back and forth to each other.Then, my wife decided she was interested enough to look at it (for once, she actually looked at a videogame). Soon, the three of us played the game on a daily basis and talked about it when we weren’t playing. The combination of time-based events and small surprises in almost every play session makes this something that people want to talk about.Best game I’ve played this year.
3. C. Conard says:

   July 23, 2010 at 7:41 am

   Review by C. Conard for Animal Crossing
   Rating:
   Okay, let’s all admit it! Before playing Animal Crossing for the first time, you think that this is another baby game, just by Nintendo. Actually, you’d be half there. Animal Crossing may appeal to babies, but it will also greatly appeal to anybody else who loves games along the lines of Pikmin or Super Monkey Ball 2. I thought about buying this game for months, before finally deciding to pick up a copy, and even then, I questioned my purchase. However, within five minutes, I fell in love with the game. The whole point to Animal Crossing is trying to make a home for yourself in a town overrun with animals. It is similar to The Sims, the PC hit by Maxis, but only not as in-depth. However, in some ways it is better than The Sims. You have no momentum bar like you do in other Sims games, and you explore the whole town freely, unlike in The Sims where you call up cabs or buses to take you everywhere. AC is much more colorful than The Sims as well. The first thing that you will notice in AC is that the game is simply not hard. In fact, the hardest task that you may do is finding out who stole Leopold’s glasses! Although it may sound corny, the concept is VERY fun. In the town, the time passes like a real day. One minute in our world is equivalent to a minute in Animal Crossing. it is really fun like this! Also, a calendar is kept, unlike The Sims, and you have four seasons come and go. The animals also celebrate holidays like Christmas and Halloween. There are fishing tournaments and even raffles to do in the town. The whole thing is really quite fun and charming. There is never an excuse for not doing anything in the town. There is always something to do, whether it’s running an errand or catching bugs. The biggest problem with the game are the graphics and sound. The graphics are really about N64 quality and the sound is only okay. But, the fact is, everything is so endearing that it’s hard to heavily nitpick Animal Crossing. This is definitely one of Nintendo’s better projects, and in my opinion, Nintendo is still king when it comes to developing games. While most systems stride to become more and more violent with games like Silent Hill 3 and GTA Vice City, Nintendo strides to become more family-oriented, which is a refreshing favor. Even me, a diehard fan or Resident Evil and Vice City loves Animal Crossing. Whether you are three or fifty, you will find Animal Crossing very fun. I know that I will play this game for years to come!
4. Anonymous says:

   July 23, 2010 at 7:45 am

   Review by for Animal Crossing
   Rating:
   This game is like no other,no,it’s not an adventure,or a puzzle,it’s life!Expeirience a new life where you name your own town and make your own rules.You buy a house,catch bugs,go fishing,anything.You start out in a small house and pay it off,just like in the real world,each time you pay it off you talk to Tom Nook(the shop keeper)and he’ll upgrade your house!You can make a basement,an upstairs,or just make your main level bigger.Once you’ve paid off your house and it’s been upgraded to the highest it can you get a gold statue of yourself infront of the train station!
   If you connect your GBA with the Nintendo GameCube link cable,you can travle to animal island where you meet a friendly animal.You can also use the AC e-reader cards to get helpful codes.
   AC runs on a real 24 hr. clock,so you can celebrate holidays and special events theat go on in your town.
   The animals that live in your village have different personalities.You can help them with errands to get a little reward or talk to them and write them letters.
   You can find many classic Nintendo games,such as Donkey Kong,CluClu Land and Excitebike.
   In AC there’s all that and much more.I hope my reveiw was helpful to you:)
5. Anonymous says:

   July 23, 2010 at 8:29 am

   Review by for Animal Crossing
   Rating:
   Ah – Animal Crossing. Where to start?Well… it all starts when you’re riding on a train, heading out into the world for the first time. A blue-and-white cat by the name of Rover walks up to you and asks you if its some ridiculous time, such as May 30, 2030, 2:41 am. Unless that’s somehow right, you’ll tell him he’s wrong and he’ll ask you the real date and time.Once you tell him, he sits next to you and engages in conversation. Eventually he asks you your name and where you’re going. Once you tell him you don’t know where you’ll be living, he calls a friend in the town you’re heading for and gets you a house.When you get to the town, you are greeted by a monkey porter. After you walk down the steps, a rather pudgy raccoon runs up to you, introducing himself as Tom Nook. He shows you a group of four shabby, tiny houses, and you will be allowed to choose one. When you are asked to pay, it is revealed that you have – not nearly enough!And so it begins. Nook asks you to work part-time for him for a while, and then are free to pay off the rest of the debt (17,400) on your own by doing favors for your neighbors, fishing, selling fruit, et cetera.Oh, yes – your neighbors. You’ll start out with five or six animal neighbors. They all have different voices, personalities, and “catch phrases” (such as: I have a duck named Deena who says “sugarbill” at the end of most of her sentences). If you aren’t nice to them, they will mostly be mean to you and even insult you. You can do favors, be quizzed, and trade furniture with them. Once you start visiting other towns, more animals will move in until you fill up to fifteen of them.There’s also holidays. On your birthday, a neighbor will bring you a gift, plus a batch of them will arrive in the mail from all your neighbors. At the Harvest Festival (their version of Thanksgiving), you must steal the knives and forks to help out the main course, a rather frantic turkey.It would really take far to long to describe everything in detail. You can run errands, fish, catch bugs, dig for fossils or treasure or even money, shop at Nook’s (which eventually upgrades as far as Nookington’s Department Store, run with the help of two adorable twins named Tommy and Timmy), upgrade your house, decorate, gossip with your neighbors, write letters, send presents to your neighbors, request songs from Tokakeke (or K.K. Slider, as he prefers to be called on Saturday nights, when he plays by the train station), listen to music, change the ‘town tune,’ and much, much, more.Said the walking endorsement for Animal Crossing.