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Animal Crossing

   7 November 2005, lunch time

Rambot lives in Toronto. I should have been more creative with my names, but it was very late at night when I started playing Animal Crossing. The game is now on sale for $30 dollars at Best Buy, and it comes with an Animal Crossing Memory Card. I’ve owned my GameCube for so long, and hardly play it. It’s nice to find a game I enjoy for the system.

Why do I own a GameCube I don’t play? Good question. I bought a GameCube several years ago because my brother’s friend Michelle could get it on the cheap from the Blockbuster where she worked. Well, that isn’t exactly why I bought it. Many years ago, I got a call from my brother Ahilan while I was studying in Waterloo:

—Ram, Michelle can get a GameCube with a wireless controller for $150 dollars. You should get it. That’s cheap.
—I don’t really want a GameCube, thanks. I’ll talk to you later.
—OK. Bye.

A few minutes later, I get another call, “I told Michelle you’d get the GameCube, you owe her $150 dollars.” And so, I was now the owner of a GameCube. Sorry for the digression

I read about Animal Crossing for the first time at Game Girl Advance. Kottke linked to a short article called Traces of Past Crossings. It told a very strange story. Jane used to play Animal Crossing with her boyfriend, who was now her ex-boyfriend. Although Jane and her boyfriend had parted company, the characters in the game still remembered him. Her story was really quite endearing. I asked if anyone had played the game before, and got a reply for Dinu saying his friend also loved the game.

I’ve only played the game for a few hours, but can see the appeal. You walk around your town performing simple tasks, and interacting with the other characters that live in your town. So far: I’ve had to plant some flowers to spruce up the local store, deliver some furniture, and write a letter to one of the other townspeople. I’m still very early in the game, but as I understand things, it gets much more free-form once you have paid off your house—yes, you have to pay off your house. I am enjoying the very unconventional gameplay.

The game has nice graphics and sound I suppose, though I don’t think anyone playing the game is doing so for those reasons. The characters are all cute little animals; they aren’t realistic in the least. The same is true of the backgrounds, which are quite cartoonish. The game play is simple enough. The tasks I’ve had to do so far just take a little time, but are far from complicated. You aren’t going to sprain your thumbs jumping from platform to platform a-la Super Mario.

I’ll have more to say once I’ve played the game a little longer, but so far the game is really quite cool. I can see why it would have such wide spread appeal. For someone who doesn’t play video games, the simple game play will be a blessing, and for someone who is a bit more of a gamer, the novel and unconventional game play will be interesting.

Video Games