Animal Crossing: Wild World Review

It's the great game of walking around and doing nothing. Animal Crossing: Wild World isn't a game in the strictest sense of the word. It's more of a community experience where you customize your home and your village, interact with the villagers there, send letters, grow and pick fruit and flowers, fish, catch bugs -- you get the picture. There's a lot to do, but only creative and intrepid users will actually discover how deep the game goes.

The atmospheric opener will draw you right in. You're sitting in the back of a dirty cab driving in the rain. The cabbie asks you several questions that are really just coy ways of allowing you to customize yourself and your village. Soon the rain lets up and he drops you off outside the Town Hall of whatever-you-named-your-city. After that, it's a wide world to explore.

The basic pattern of tasks you'll undertake in this game is simple. You need money (Bells) to buy things, so in order to earn them you have to sell things. You start off with a hefty debt of nearly 20,000 Bells to Tom Nook, the raccoon and store owner who built your house. The first thing you'll do is help him out by doing a few basic tasks like planting flowers, mailing letters and posting on the community bulletin board. This lets you get a feeling for the game and introduces you to the mechanics of Animal Crossing: Wild World.

After a few chores are done, you're really on your own. The best way to make some Bells is to shake fruit from the trees and sell them to Tom Nook. Then you can buy some tools and work on doing some more entertaining tasks -- like fishing. Or, if you're sick of working, you can always go and make your own constellations at the observatory...

Almost everything is customizable. You can use an endless number of patterns to paste on your wall, your floor, or to decorate your clothing. Bored with the in-game designs? Make your own! There's no limit to the number of designs you can create, but you can only hold seven at a time. Choose wisely.

Your house is your castle, make the best of it. Move, rotate, place and arrange your furniture to your heart's content. And there's a lot of furniture to be found in the game. Beds, rugs, boxes, candles, showers -- I can't even begin to list them all. And once you are able to expand your house, you can fill it with all the furniture you like.

The game is infinitely more interesting with Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. While playing alone, you're limited to interacting with computer-controlled characters and your own village. The NPC conversations are good, but talking with real people is so much better. Grab some friends with Animal Crossing: Wild World and exchange Friend Codes. Using these codes you can visit each other's village, send letters, shop or do anything you can possibly imagine. The experience is so much more unique when playing online. You'd be crazy not to use it. It's also a great way to get some help from more experienced players (as long as you're not annoying).

Animal Crossing: Wild World is like a cross between Harvest Moon and Ping Pals. Interact with other villagers and customize your home in every way imaginable. This open-ended game gives you the freedom to do almost anything you want. And with Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, you'll have a blast visiting your friends' towns and writing letters back and forth. This is an experience you won't want to miss.

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