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Animal Crossing has a place in the hearts of many a gamer. Released with little fanfare in the US on the GameCube people wondered if Nintendo's quality control was slipping. Fuzzy, simplistic, and square graphics put off the mainstream but for those who took the time to play -- no, live -- Miyamoto's masterpiece a very rewarding experience was to be found. Starting off with only a little money in your pocket and an in game avatar which only looks vaguely human you step (well, ride, really) into the world of animals. You start on a train where you divulge your name to a blue cat with an overly large head (a problem all the animals in the game seem to posses) as well as naming your destination. After establishing your sex and blabbering about nothing in particular the cat is concerned to hear you have nowhere to stay and very kindly rings ahead to her friend Tom-Nook who she says will sort you out a house. Upon arriving at your destination and being greeted by a monkey wearing a hat and waistcoat your new life begins. Your life in Animal Crossing. After the capitalistic Tom-Nook explains to you that you owe him rather a large sum of money for your house you are forced to work in his shop to help repay this debt. This serves as an introduction to the game world which is to become your home away from home and allows you to get to grips with the type of game play Animal Crossing offers. However apart from the immediate need to pay off your loan (which will take two days at most) Animal Crossing has no point, no goals, and no rules. But why the hell are you going to play a game with no point, no goals, and no rules? You want testosterone fueled massacres aided by ammo chomping mini guns, you want digitalized women who need rescuing, and you want fat Italian plumbers squeezed into tight red dungarees shouting "yippee" and "hurrah". In fact scratch the last one; what you want is death. However there isn't any death, guns, or digitalized women in Animal Crossing, nor is there any point to it. You exist simply to exist in Animal Crossing and doing just that is what makes the game so enjoyable. Get an axe and deforest your virtual world or collect rare fruit types and then lovingly tender them as they grow over a number of days into a glittering orchard full of shining juicy fruit. It's up to you in the same way that it was in Grand Theft Auto except this time there's no guns, death or digitalized women (who, to the hilarity of some, can be combined with the first two options). Get the message yet? Animal Crossing shares the same freeform gaming ideas that GTA does; here is an environment, interact with it how you will, but instead focuses on communication, exploration, friendship, and living. Animal Crossing's main feature is its clock. Strange as it sounds it's clock is what makes Animal Crossing such a great game. Play at 6am in the morning and in your village its 6am, people are waking up, the sun is rising and morning aerobics are taking place down at the wishing well. Play at 2am and nearly everyone's asleep, the town is dark and a ghost roams the place offering rewards for catching his younger ghoulies with your bug net. You see Animal Crossing uses the GameCube's Internal clock to determine what time it is, what day it is, and what season it is. Play in summer and the grass is green you get lots of sunny days and insects are in a plentiful supply. Play in winter and the ground is covered in snow, the heavens frequently open upon you, and insects are hard to be found. You see this is what makes Animal Crossing revolutionary and yet so entertaining. You play for a minute and a minute has passed in the game world. It may sound trivial but it's brilliant and totally changes your perception of gaming and the way in which you enjoy it. Special Events happen on certain days such as the non-denominational Toy Day on the 23rd of December and the meteor shower on 11th August. This drives the game forward. There's always a carrot dangling before you and once you've eaten that one there's another, and another, and another each as delicious as the last. Be it that rare Luigi statue to complement the Mario one you dug up earlier or a mamma bear to sit proudly next to your papa bear in your house or even to find an ammonite fossil to complete the musems collection. There is always something you haven't done or you havn't mastered or a conversation you haven't had. Longetivity? I'll be playing this game when I'm 90. As well as communication Animal Crossing is about collecting. Collecting bells (Animal Crossing currency), collecting furniture, collecting clothes, collecting fish, collecting bugs, collecting fossils, collecting paintings, collecting NES games, collecting fruit (theres a lot more but I'll stop there) or, like me, a mixture of all is essential in order to spruce up your home (you can buy bigger houses with bells or furnish them with furniture you've collected) your appearance, your bank balance, your orchard, and even the village museum. There's a staggering number of items in animal crossing and collecting a quarter of them is no small achievement. For example there are over 200 pieces of clothing available and some can only be obtained through special tasks for example washing Gracie's car in an international track and field style button bashing sprint. Nintendo has laced this game with subtle nods at its most famous franchises. Link's master sword, statues of Mario and Luigi, Nintendo umbrellas,starmen, and arwings all feature. There's many more besides and if you know your Nintendo history or even if you've only ever played mario once you'll love discovering these items on your travels. Talking of Nintendo history yet another feature of Animal Crossing is the ability to play NES games via it. NES games can be dug up, bought, or received and allow you to replay Nintendo's first classics on their fourth console. If you wanted you could simply forget about the rest of the game world and use Animal Crossing as a Retro compilation of Nintendo's finest NES hits. However you won't want to because Animal Crossing is an amazing, no, one of the best ever games. Time to stop my rambling now and I haven't even began to mention the brilliant AI, the fishing, the bug collecting, the fruit growing, the fruit selling, the letter writing, the golden items, the unique GameBoy Advance connectivity, the fact its been tested by Team Mario, the special series of animal crossing cards compatible with the game and the E-reader, or the way you can send items to friends without the internet via an ingenious code system. . . I suppose I'll just have to let you discover those for yourself. ck
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