Animal Crossing (Nintendo GameCube, 2002)

Pros: Strangely addicting, all about freedom game play, runs on real time (you can change the time & date settings), can do tasks for your neighbors, customize your house, go fishing, insect catching, buy/sell stuff, trade (sometimes), plant trees, find "treasure", fishing tournaments etc. basically like a real world.

Cons: everytime you do a job/task for someone, they tend to give you stationary more than anything else, you only get one type of "fruit" tree (if you come across other fruits, you can bury them to grow that "fruit" tree & even plant money trees) but the trees can die, You can't really make good money aka bells in the winter season usually fishing is the best way but most the time in the winter you mostly catch seabass which don't sell for much, you can't go to a different town unless you have another memory card that has Animal Crossing on it, you can't move to a different town like your neighbors can, it gets boring after you play it & you've done all the things you can do mult-times. But, its still a time killer whenever your bored.

Personally, I think it would have been even better if it was a mult-player game, so you can play with someone at the same time. Also, I think the game is a bit too girly/colorful.

Overall, including game play, graphics, fun/enjoyable etc. wise I give it a 8/10.

I love this game because it's one of the first I could learn to play, not being born in the "gaming generation". I never could play all the first person shooter games my children could play blindfolded, talking on the phone. Some of them even scared me. This game was simple, happy and allowed me to do things that didn't involved ripping people's spines out (although I can see the theraputic value in that some days) Instead, I plant flowers, go fishing, and talk to animals and make them happy. I work to own bigger and better houses with basements and second levels. I can compete in decorating contests and in a kind of simplistic way I have my own little world to live in. Animal Crossing doesn't have crowds, crime, traffic jams, bill collectors, whining family members, or any of the other stuff that makes my head want to explode on a daily basis.

Anyway, I had the game for the longest time and loved to play on those days when I was considering killing off any number of people who had irritated me beyond belief. Somewhere in a year of multiple moves, I lost my copy and when I found it here on ebay, I jumped at the chance to have my little piece of unreality back again :)

The game has fishing, and fossil finding, if you know where to look you can find money, you can trade for clothes, money, furniture. You can build up the museum with fossils, and art and the aquarium with different kinds of fish. Honestly, this is for ages 8 and up, but I am easily amused and a child at heart at 45 (so sue me, lol). So go look it up or better yet, ask a kid who is familiar with the game to show you how to play. That will be your best introduction.

Animal Crossing is among my favorite virtual real life games (My other favorite being the Harvest Moon Series). My favorite aspect of this game is the ability to decorate your house, as you wish. Although this game is not the action adventure game most game players are looking for these days, I love it because there really is no end to the game. You can play this game for years always discovering new things.

There are so many aspects of this game to complete that I am never bored, but some people find it boring and repetitive. Just some of the goals to complete are catching all the bugs, catching all the fish species, digging up all the fossils, completing a set of furniture (and getting a high rating from the HRA), and collecting all the special items given out via special events (this requires visiting your mayor and other characters on certain days throughout the year)

If you have a Game Boy Advance and Gamecube Connector for it, you can visit Animal Island and get some unique items including coconuts that you can plant back in your town and sell to Tom for 150 each. You can also get other foriegn fruits that sell for 500 by visiting your friends towns. Have them put the memory card in the second slot of the Gamecube and you can visit their town, take some fruit, and plant it back in your town. Also, be sure to check out their store while your there and you may find the item you need to complete a furniture collection. Friends can also gift you items by visiting Tom and he will give a code that you can tell Tom in your town to get the item.

"Draw me a face." That's what one of the characters said to me on the train. So i drew her a face. That was extremely funny and random!

This game is really funny. And not in a dirty way! Like Mr. Resetti. If you reset your game, after you turn it back on he'll get REALLY mad at you and talk for like ever! It's really funny. He's like "You better not reset EVER AGAIN! ITS BAD FOR YOU.. Oh and by the way. Take a bath. You smell" It's so hillarious!

This game works on a real time schedule. If you leave your town for awhile, (not like INGAME.. but if you dont play the game for like 3 weeks) it'll sometimes ask you if you've been in the hospital. One time my mom actually WAS away in the hospital! They asked her that and she had to laugh... But it KNOWS How often you play it! When its winter outside, it's winter in animal crossing land! If it's summer, so is it! It's really cool. Even things happen when your not there. Like your townspeople can move away during the time your not even playing! I didn't really understand the whole concept till I actually got to play it.

I guess the main objective of this game is to enlarge your house as much as possible then put a TON of stuff in it! This game is really addicting when you get into it, but after awhile it gets boring :\ It should have implemented alot of other features into it. Perhaps like Runescape? Like mining. Getting different levels of mining. Differnt fishing levels to catch different types of fish. But this game, I think, was made mainly for little kids.. and it might confuse them or something.

Oh and not to mention the NES games.. You can get these items that allow you to play NES games.. On your GC! Or you can hook up your GBA and play NES games on there! There's a variety of them. Which is really cool!

But yeah. This game is fun for people of all ages. My mom loved playing it and she was 40. And this game comes with it's own memory card! (Well mine did) So you dont even have to buy a new memory card for it! Neat!

-Cait-

This is a game that can entertain you for hours. This is a one player game, but you can create 4 different characters. I like it because it is a one player game. I have also created a character for my 4 year old granddaughter who loves to play the game. She can take her character all over town and loves going into the different houses and sitting on their furniture, or sleeping in their bed. She has become very good at digging holes and covering them back up, catching bugs with her net, and pretty good at fishing.... She loved the game so much I got her one for her 4th birthday. Now her parents are avid ANIMAL CROSSING fans and have created their own characters. So we share our memory cards with each other so we can visit each others town via the train, and trade items, or shop in the other towns for items not found in our own town.
It is a real time game which also makes it a little more interesting. I like to watch the seasons change and the sun come up or go down on the gamecube and out side my window, at the same time!
Even though I have gone as far as I can with my house, I could demolish it and start all over, make up another character and start fresh in the same town, or continue with my first character interacting with all my neighbors and seeing how much of a fortune I can amass!! And there are so many other features to the game like attaching the gameboy advance to ride a boat to an island, and attaching an e reader to your gameboy advance....
The reason why I bought the game was the real time feature, and the game has been out for quite awhile now, and it still appeared to be popular in the bidding process. I highly recommend this game for all ages, however, for the little ones who can't read yet you might want to help them get started and for gosh sakes don't let them have an axe!!!!