Player’s Club: Animal Crossing: City Folk
December 4, 2008 at 9:00 am by Garrett Martin in A&E
Animal Crossing: City Folk
Rated E for Everybody
Released Nov. 16
Nintendo Wii
Developed by Nintendo EAD
Published by Nintendo
The Sims has always confused me. Video games exist to help us forget about our jobs, families, bills, Irritable Bowel Syndromes, and all of life’s other inconveniences. Why would we want to simulate the life we’re trying to avoid? Where’s the fun in that? Now, replace all that semi-realistic stuff in the Sims with a magical fantasyland populated by anthropomorphic animals with the temperaments of spoiled and highly caffeinated children, and you’ve got yourself a game. Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: City Folk to be specific.
Animal Crossing isn’t a typical video game. There are no levels, no enemies, no concrete goals other than being friendly, and there’s no end to it. Ever. Like the Sims, Animal Crossing is about living life, but a highly absurd and unrealistic version of life. The bulk of the game play consists of interacting with neighbors – running errands for them, writing letters, trading objects, or even just hanging out and chatting. You can also collect furniture and other decorations for your house, buy and design clothing, go fishing, dig up fossils, get sassed by an attitudinous pelican post office worker, hang out at the museum café and listen to noted dog troubadour KK Slider… you know, the sort of typical mundane junk that you do every day in your real life.
Everything happens in real-time, based on your Wii’s internal calendar. If you play at 2 a.m., it’ll be nighttime in your game, the store will be closed, and most of the other animals will be asleep. When it’s winter in your world, it’ll probably be snowing in the game. When beloved real-life celebrities come to untimely ends, the animals in your town wear black in mourning. And like real life, all the animals are sick of talking about the election.
There are also special events that correspond with real-life holidays. I spent an hour or two on Thanksgiving helping Franklin the Turkey (the “guest of honor” at my village’s Harvest Festival dinner) steal the silverware off the banquet table. The date-sensitive occurrences lend Animal Crossing a long shelf life. This isn’t a game you rush through in a weekend and never play again. Animal Crossing is something you’ll play briefly every day or so for several months, and even then you probably won’t experience everything the game has to offer.
There’s one major flaw with Animal Crossing: City Folk. It’s almost exactly like the first two Animal Crossing games. If you’ve ever played the original on the Nintendo GameCube or AC: Wild World on the DS, then you’ve basically played City Folk. Nintendo made very few updates to the core game, and has effectively just ported the DS version over to the Wii. There are a few tweaks here and there, including online functionality that allows your Wii friends to come hang out in your town; online voice chat through the new Wii Speak speaker phone (the first Wii game to provide this feature); and a new city you can visit and go shopping in. For the most part, though, City Folk is identical to Wild World. It’s not that big a deal for me, because I haven’t spent much time with Animal Crossing since the original came out in 2002. But it’s got to be frustrating for hardcore fans. Still, if you’ve never played an Animal Crossing game, it’s the perfect time to start.
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