Sick of your world and your boring old life? Just want to hang out, play some Nintendo and fish? If so then Animal crossing is the game for you. you may think this game sounds a bit lame. I did when I first heard about it. I thought it was going to be some stupid The Sims clone. I couldnt of been more wrong. This game quickly made it’s way to the top of my all times favorite list.

Gameplay

You arrive to your town on a train where an animal comes up to you and asks what’s your name, this is where you choose your characters name by typing it using the ingame keyboard., then it ask you if you are a boy or a girl. After that it asks what town you are going to visit and live in. This is where you make up your towns name. I choose TepeCaca. After you choose your name, your sex and your towns name it is now time to see your town. The towns are randomly generated so your town will most likely be difernt from your friends town if they have the game also. Once you arrive at the town right away a Racoon by the name of Nook ask you what house you would like to live in. You have a choice from 4 houses which are basically the same but just have a few small changes like the color of the roof and the wallpaper inside and the floor. Sadly you have no money to purchase the house so you end up working for Nook and doing a few jobs for him. You run a few errands for him and plant some flowers around the shop. This may sound like it is boring but its actually fun for some strange reason. Once you finish working for him you still owe him about 18,000 bells, bells being the currency for Animal Crossing, you can pay of the rest of this loan by selling fish, selling fruit, shells, fossils, bugs you caught or furniture to him which he pays for with bells. Once you pay off that loan you are able to upgrade your house to make it bigger and get a basement but of course at a cost. Animal Crossing has thousand of items in it to put in your house so snaz it up. You can put things like TVs, couches, beds, well anykind of furniture you can think of and then some. Theres also things like pinball machines, ping pong tables, statues and even bonzai trees. There is also tons of differnt sets which are fun to try and collect. One of the features I like most about Animal Crossing is how you can trade with your friends. Using an amazing password system. The passwords only work for the user with the right name and the right town name. If someone else tries to use it who doesnt have the right name it wont work. Its a great system. I love to trade for furniture and I love collecting the old Nintendo games. There is a huge collection of nintendo games on Animal Crossing. There is Donkey Kong, Golf, Soccer, Donkey Kong Jr., Excite Bike, Balloon fight and a ton more. Even a Zelda game is rumoured to be on it. The thing that keeps you comming back to play Animal Crossing is the fact that is has holidays and special events.

One thing that encourages you to maintain your house and to make it look nice is the HRA rating. HRA stands for Happy Room Academy. They pretty much score your house on how clean it is, and if you have set items. The higher your score the better. To make you want to maintain your town, like to pull weeds and make it look nice, is that the nicer your town is kept, the longer the animals will stay in your town. Also more animals will come and move to you town. The maximium is 15 animals living in your town at once. They will also move out if you dont talk to them and ignore them.

You can see Full Moons, Particpate in Fishing tournys, celebrate The new year and do tons of other things. The only big holiday though that I have had the game for was Halloween which was really cool. All the towns folk dressed up (sadly all as jackolanterns) and asked you for candy. So you better of baught candy from Nook the prior week or your in trouble. Also if you found a certain guy who would be the only one who didnt chase after you and gave him a piece of candy he would give you a piece of a special furniture set that you can only get from him on halloween night.

Animal Crossing is able to have special events because it relies on the gamecubes internal clock. It really is a neat feature because when its nightime for you, it is nightime in the Animal Crossing world. When it is fall in real life. It is fall in Animal crossing. It is really cool to see the world change seasons. You can see leaves fall, snow fall and it even rains.

Graphics and Sound

Well to be honest the graphics in Animal Crossing are nothing spectacular, they really are pretty bad. Although I feel it goes good with the game. I mean sure I would love for better graphics but just the graphics of it seem to go good with the vibe of the game. Im still going to have to give them a fairly low score though. The sound for the game is pretty good. The main songs whenyou are walking around are pretty good and catchy and dont seem to get annoying even after hearing it over and over. Ever Saturday night a dog by the name K.K Slider stops by and gives out 2 songs that you can then play on your radio at your house..

Controls

Well I have found nothing to be wrong with the controls. Nothing seems to be annoying for me and everything seems to control fine. Although I am someone who has no problems with the Resident Evil controls so maybe im just weird .

Value

Well this game will definitely keep you comming back for more. I usually check my town at least a few times a week to see what special events are going on. To check on my neighbors and to see if Nook is selling anything good. This game never has an end to it so you never really have an end. There will always be something new to keep you playing.

Overall

Overall this is a great game for any gamecube owner to add to there library. There is so much to do. It’s a blast to catch fish, write letters to your neighbors, catch bugs, collect fruit, dig up fossils, and decorate your house. Oh and I can’t forget how cool it is to play all the old nintendo games. Theres so much replay and endless things to do. It’s really fun to trade with people through the net or even close friends to get new items. So what I am trying to say is BUY this game!