Addictive life sim collect em up for kids and gentle adults. (Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City (Wii))

Member Name: chucklingMonkey

Product:	Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City (Wii)
Date:	15/05/09 (57 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots to see and do

Disadvantages: Lots you may have seen and done before

Animal Crossing finally has landed on the Wii. If you have never played this before on the Gamecube or DS then it sits in the same genre as The Sims and Harvest Moon. It sounds tedious: after moving into a small town which you name yourself, you move into a tiny little house and start paying off your mortgage. You do this with money which you can earn in a variety of ways. You can pick fruit and sell it to the town's shopkeeper Tom Nook, you can sell fish, insects and fossils which you can find in town. You can also perform tasks for the local population, accruing gifts which can be sold for cash.

Those who are familiar with the previous two incarnations of the game will find nothing different here. These core elements are identical - although interactions with the poplace have evolved somewhat through the series, nothing groundbreaking has changed so far.

The game hooks you in because by paying off your mortgage you eventually get to a point where you can upgrade your house, get a larger room, and additional floors. These are filled with furniture which can be bought from the previously mentioned shop or obtained via the various real time events that occur in the game world.

It is the events that keep the game fresh - in April there is an easter egg hunt, fishing tournaments occur monthly.

The seasons also change in real time which isn't just cosmetic. Different fish and insects can be caught in summer as opposed to winter. And these along with the fossils can be donated to a museum giving a 'collect em all' angle to the game which provides another hook.

Various other activities can be pursued in the town, and new in this iteration, a city. The city part of the game is actually rather disappointing. There is nothing there to really keep you returning. A hugely expensive shop is a curiosity, the theatre is merely a means of purchasing new expressions (only really useful in multiplayer), and the hairdresser grants the ability to use your mii instead of the default Animal Crossingesque avatar.

Multiplayer is where this game really gets interesting. You can create multiple characters in the same town on the same Wii and also visit other friends towns via the Nintendo Wi-fi connection. The Wii speak peripheral is pretty good too acting like a headset for the whole room, although in honesty a headset may have been preferable for the sake of privacy.

All in all if you are new to the series and like these sorts of life sim games then it is well worth picking up as you will get lots of gameplay out of this title. You also won't know what you are missing from previous incarnations (specifically collectable fully playable NES games). If you have an older DS or Gamecube version then resist the urge to get this, (it's a two star rating for you) and pray that the next Animal Crossing will be the MMO that this game should have been.

Summary: If new to the series then a worthwhile purchase.