Crossing Animals

It’s a Wild World, and in no other place does it get wilder than in Animal Crossing: Wild World. The second of three Animal Crossing versions, this one is for the Nintendo DS. I’m not going to give too much away in my description of the game, in the hopes that I’ll recruit some friends to trade game codes with!

Wild World was released in December of 2005. Its first rendering was on the Game Cube in 2002, and its latest cousin – City Folk – was just recently introduced to the Wii crowd in November 2008.

The game is rated E for everyone, but (as I’ve told customers when I worked at EB) the player must be able to read. The play mechanics are easy enough – you can either use the directional pad or the stylus to move your character. If you so choose, you hardly ever need to touch any of the buttons, but I find that a little difficult at times. Most of the action happens on the bottom screen, but keep your eye on the sky!

The game starts out just as most other games do – who are you (name), what are you (boy/girl). You’ll also get to choose the name of the town you’re moving away to. When you arrive in the new town, you’re immediately accosted by a raccoon who sets you up with a house – for a price. You are to work for him, which means running his errands and doing his chores. It’s really just an underhanded way to get you used to referring to the town map, finding your way around the controls and display windows, and meeting the other animals who live and work there. You’ll have very little freedom to explore everything until you complete all the tasks Nook asks you to do. Don’t worry, if you’re quick it’ll only take you about 20 minutes.

After he releases you from slavery, you still have a mortgage to pay. No worries there – if you choose, you don’t have to ever pay it down. However, if you want a bigger place, you’ll need to pay him back to expand your house. Each time he’ll give you a new mortgage, but it’s a small price to pay to have two floors, multiple rooms, and a basement, right?

There are plenty of other things to do, and plenty of ways to make money. You can fish, catch bugs, dig up fossils, collect artwork, seashells, farm fruit trees, empty out the lost-and-found… you can even go dumpster diving in the trash bin!

Because the game occurs in real-time, the seasons change, and with each season comes new experiences, visitors, and activities. In the winter you can make snowmen. Make them correctly, and they’ll talk to you! You might even get a surprise afterward! In the fall, collect acorns for the town Mayor. In the spring, a flower festival is held, and fishing and bug-catching contests are held in the spring and summer.

Since the game occurs in real-time, more than just seasons will change. The longer you stay away from the game, the more concerned the creatures will become upon your return. I had one mad at me for being gone three months! The town will become run-down as well – flowers will wither and brown, and weeds will grow everywhere. It’s worse inside your house – while you were away, cockroaches will have taken up residence! They’re easy to get rid of, just run them over. Make sure to move the furniture around and get all those nasty buggers gone!

Animals reside in your town, and it is your duty to make sure they are thriving happily alongside you. How do you take care of them? Talking to them, for starters. Also, writing them letters, giving gifts, visiting their houses, and going along with their games keeps them entertained. From time to time, one may move away, but there always seems to be another who’s just moved in.

The town has its very own museum, and it’s a great way to boast to friends about how much time you spend gaming. Dinosaur fossils, fish, insects, and artwork are collected here, and it is your job to help Blathers (he’s an owl, so you have to forgive his napping throughout the day) fill the museum. He’ll identify fossils you dig up, take new fish and insect specimens, as well as any new pieces of art you’ve acquired. My fossil collection is complete. I’m still working on everything else though. The museum also has an Observatory, where you can draw constellations in the sky with Celeste, or go into Roost and grab a cup of coffee from Brewster and listen to K.K. Slider play his guitar on Saturday nights.

Wild World is WIFI-capable (you’ll need friends’ codes and they’ll need yours), and if you know a friend’s going to be playing at the same time you are, you could go visit them, or have them come visit you. Up to four players can be in a single town, which means you can have three visitors, or be one of three guests. You can play hide & seek, terrorize his neighbors, steal his fruit (there are 6 different kinds, you only start with one!), and plant pitfalls to trap him in a hole in the ground. Or you could be nice, and bring him fruit from your town he may not have, pull up his weeds, and be nice to his neighbors. After all, if you’re nicer to them than he is, they could move away from his town and come live in yours! You could also end up seeing one or two of his constellations in your sky.

There are lots of other random events and fun things to do, like design a town flag, create your own town song (it plays every time the clock strikes the hour), create clothes to sell in the Able Sisters tailoring shop (which also sells clothes, accessories, and cute umbrellas!), and get your hair cut, styled, and dyed in the salon, which comes attached to the largest version of Nook’s shop (the crazy raccoon I talked about earlier). There’s also a town hall, where mail can be sent, mortgage can be paid, and donations to Boondox can be made. Boondox can’t be visited, but from what the duck at the counter says, they’re really bad off and could use your help. You can also find out what the townsfolk think about your town there. She’ll read you comments from other residents, and you can decide what to do, if anything, about it. Random visitors will appear throughout the town from time to time, and may give you gifts or charge you with tasks, but they all have their own reward if you do well.

I’ve had this game since about the time it was released. I’ve played in spurts, and check in at least an hour or two each week to pull weeds, kill cockroaches under my sofa, dig up any fossils I find, and round up all the fruits to sell to Nook. I love Animal Crossing: Wild World, and don’t think I could get rid of it until I was absolutely sure I had the biggest house and the museum was complete. I have three first floor rooms and a second floor room, below the ‘bedroom’ where you ‘go to sleep’ and save the game. I still need a basement.

There’s also a large community of Wild World gamers which I’m on, Animal Crossing Community. Of course, my username there is MistressJett. There’s a pile of forums & information to look through, and you can find players that are using their games & looking for friends online in real-time.

If anyone decides to pick up this game and give it a try, let me know so we can exchange friend codes. It’s a little bit of a cheat, but I can give you the 5 types of the fruit that you don’t start with that you can plant & grow for yourself. They will give you more Bells (their currency) than your native fruit.

I’m off to play with the animals!

Yours in tech,

Jett

DS in Review

So I’d like to start off my review of all things DS by reviewing the handheld system itself.

The system itself consists of a clamshell with a screen on each half. The lower screen is a touch screen. It reacts with either a touch of a finger, a fingernail, or a stylus that comes housed in the back of the lower half. There’s a slot in the bottom of the lower half for Nintendo GameBoy Advance games, and a slot at the top of the lower half for Nintendo DS games. There’s a four-directional pad on the left side and four buttons on the right side of the  bottom screen, and two trigger buttons on either side of the top of the bottom half. There’s also a microphone between the two screens.

There are plugs for headphones and charger, power and volume sliders on the sides. I’m tired of talking about the specs now. It comes in silvery white, black, pink, red (but it was a special edition), black & red, blue & black, and ice blue (which was also a special edition). I have the pink version.

The games vary greatly, and use very unique ways of gameplay. Any thing from using your voice (or breath), touching the screen, using the controls on the DS, and (using an attachment in the GBA slot) shaking the system, or using an extra set of buttons.

The DS system is statistically one of the most evenly distributed between genders. Which means that there are almost an equal number of girls who own the system as boys. That is something that no game system has ever been able to accomplish. It is thanks, mostly, to the variety of games that the system carries. With everything from Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, to Hello Kitty Big City Dreams, there is something for everyone and every age group.

I plan on doing reviews on several games in my library, as well as accessories and the new Nintendo DSi coming out in April.

Until then!

Yours in tech,

Jett

Re-awakening

So, since I am not in Second Life as much as I used to be (read: once a month at most), I’ve decided to broaden this blog’s horizons, and re-release it as an overall tech blog. World of Warcraft, Nintendo DS, Wii, computers, electronics, and anything else tech that tickles my fancy. I still plan to include Second Life in this blog, which is why it still carries my Second Life character name.

Besides, it’s much easier to broaden a blog’s horizons than to delete a blog & start a brand new one!

Yours in Tech,

Jett