Animal Crossing: City Folk

You Won’t Want to Miss This

Well here it is, one of my favorite Wii games Animal Crossing: City Folk.

Why is this game so special? Well firstly its addictive – of course that goes without saying, and it is suitable for all the family.

We each brough the bundle  that comes complete with the Official Wii Speak Microphone which can also be brought seperately.

So once you create your character you set off to take up residence in a new town. You get to choose the name of your town. When you arrive you have nowhere to live and no job – sounds a bit like real life really.

Well before long you go to work for the local grocer who also sets you up in a house that you have to work to pay for.

Once you have completed the first tasks you are on your own and this is where the real fun starts. You get to meet the locals in you town and they give you bits of advice and sometimes gifts. The local characters all have different personalities and you can also watch them interact with each other. Sometimes the argue and then storm off in different directions with black clouds puffing out of their heads signifying their displeasure. Some are sweet and obliging and some are just plain grumpy.

To make extra money you run errands for them, or go fishing, collect shells, shake the trees and sell the fruit that falls to the ground, catch bugs, butterflies and beetles, all of which can be sold.  You can also dig up fossils to donate to the museum.

This game keeps you fully entertained because the fish and insects change with the seasons, which are in real time. As winter approaches the game changes and snow falls, meaning you can build  snowmen.

You can have up to three other friends live in your city as well. I find this really handy when Ce’Nedra, my grandaughter comes to play. She can play with her character without having any effect on the goals attained by my character.

You can get on a bus and visit the city where you meet more characters, can have your fortune told, go to a show, buy clothing and furniture, and have your shoes shone and go to the auction house to buy or sell goods.

But the biggest plus with Animal Crossing: City Folk is that with the new Wii Speak Accessory you can talk to you online friends while you are playing.  Paula and I find that the microphone is very sensitive and its very clear.  We not only chat about the game of course but use the time to talk about other things  – saves a phone call.

Once you have visited another town you often find that some of your characters will move to the other town and vise versa.  When you talk to them they will say things like  ” I just moved here from (name of other town) do you know Paula ( or whoever your friend is).

There are no levels to reach you simply play the game for as long as you like and do whatever activities you enjoy.

Often there are things to do on special occasions, again it is up to you if you want to participate.  Recently there was a fishing competition and there was a prize for getting the biggest fish. With Halloween coming up it will be time to play trick or treat.

Because I have been away for a while, my town will have lots of weeds growing that I will have to pull out to get the town looking pristine again.

The game has all the familiar characters from the Gamecube and DS editions such as Tom Nook, the grocer; Blathers, the museum curator, K.K.Slider the musician who will give you a piece of music to play in your cd player, he can be heard on Saturday nights in the coffee lounge and of course Mr Resetti who tells you off when you don’t save the game properly.

Many of the other characters that you will have seen in the older versions of the game can now be found in permanent shops in the city.

Now because Paula and I are in the same country, we experience the same weather and seasons in our game, but if you have a friend in another country you can visit them and experience the seasons, weather and holidays that are specific to in their country. Isn’t that just way too cool.

So now you can see why Paula, Cedie and  I love Animal Crossing: City Folk and recommend it to anyone who wants a family friendly, totally interactive and enjoyable gaming experience.

I can’t believe it!  I went looking for posts about the Wii and found that although I have talked about my PS3  and XBox 360, I haven’t talked about the Wii.  How absurd, I mean to say, one of my favorite games is played on the Wii – Animal Crossing: City Folk.

Paula and I brought the Wii quite some time ago when we upgraded from the GameCube Console ( although I haven’t yet manage to part with my gamecube). The main reason being that we love playing Animal Crossing and more so now than ever, because we can visit each others town through our wifi networks.

So we don’t even have to be in the same room, or across the hall as we were in Bangkok, to play this as an interactive game.

Believe me if you are looking for a gaming platform that the whole family can enjoy then you can’t go past the Wii and you if you aren’t into shoot em ups then you really want to try Animal Crossing.

But Firstly the Wii gaming platform:

Here is a compact unit that has 512 MB of internal flash memory, two USB 2.0 ports and a slot for SD memory expansion.

The processing chip was developed with IBM and the graphics chipset is from ATI.  Unlike the other gaming systems that have a tray to hold the discs, the Wii has a single, self loading media slot that lets you play both  the 12-centimeter optical discs that have been designed for use in the new system as well as any of your favorite Nintendo GameCube discs.

I was playing my gamecube Animal Crossing game until the new one with all the added interactive functionality was released.

There is no clunky controller to manage. Even the littlies can hold onto the Wii Remote Controller which is about the size of a tv remote control. Now this remote has the most amazing functionality.  There are acellerometers within the controller that measure your movement in all directions and speeds.  So when you are playing tennis the remote becomes your raquet,  when playing games like Zelda – it becomes your sword and in a first person shooting game it serves as your firearm that you point to shoot the enemy. 

 There is also an additional accessory, the Nunchuck which gives you additional trigger buttons.  Up to four controllers can be linked at the one time and the Wii makes use of standard Bluetooth wireless technology.

The contoller comes with a comfortable non slip sleeve.

 What’s in the Box:

• Nintendo Wii Game Console
• one (1) Wii Remote controller with Wii Remote Jacket
• one (1) Nunchuk controller
• Wii Sports
• sensor bar
• power cord
• standard composite cable
• stand

And the beauty of having Wii Sports included is that you have hours of fun right from the time of opening the box.

Playstation 3

Both Paula and I each have a PlayStation 3 system as we are both avid gamers even though we are not geeky teenagers.  We even play ‘Magic the Gathering’ which is generally considered to be an IT guy game.

I would have to say that Resistance: Fall Of Man is probably our favorite game and we love Resistance 2 although it is limited in the offline two player mode.

When we are not playing single player games we like to play the whole game through as a team on a split screen and we find that most games only give you specific campaigns to play in the offline mode.

We also each have an Xbox 360 and Wii as we find that each platform has games that are specific to that platform and we like to play a variety of games.

The Playstation 3 has revolutionized how we play video games. This is one of the first consumer entertainment electronics pieces that can fully integrate between the computer and the home entertainment system.

It isn’t just a video game console.

It has a high end HD blue ray DVD as well as Internet connectivity. It does more than just let you shoot the bad guys. Even though the PS3 can be an expensive upfront purchase when you consider what all you get with a unit the price is really quite reasonable.

There’s a lot of computer power built in to the PS3. It’s all about gaming. Graphics for the Playstation are unbelievable and offer lifelike 3d rendering of people,   true to life facial expressions and the amazingly intricate background designs.

The controllers are intuitive to use and ergonomically fit your hands.

Let’s talk about the blu-ray DVD player for a second. Although this is the prime way of loading games into the system, it can also be used as a regular HD DVD player as well. This means you don’t have to shell out an additional payment to upgrade your existing DVD player. The unit can be fully integrated into an HD system through a standard HDMI port.

When we brought our systems we had outdated TV’s which didn’t do the graphics justice so we brought a Sony BRAVIA which absolutely brings the action to life.

The Playstation 3 comes in several different models with budget units having a 20GB hard drive and advanced models having a 60 or 80 GB drive. All units have the same operating system so all you need to worry about is how much you’ll have loaded onto the hard drive.

Another thing to consider if you have  PS2 games, you may find that the 20GB system is not backward compatible.  I commute between two states regularly so  I brought a second system as I didn’t want to transport my PS3 around with me. I have the 80GB which plays PS2 games just fine and so when I brought a 20GB as the second system, it wasn’t until I went to play an old favorite PS2 game that I found it wasn’t backward compatible.  So make sure you check this feature if it is a concern for you.

Some of the other features available are Bluetooth and wi-fi connectivity, SD card readers, and USB ports making the unit easy to integrate.

With all the features available it’s easy to see why this system is great for any home be it for casual entertainment or for the serious hardcore gamer.  A Playstation 3  easily integrates into any home entertainment system

I have to say I love the PS3 and we have great party nights with Singstarand Buzz
.