Video Animer Reviews: Animal Crossing: City Folk with Wii Speak Wii Review

The formula for this game is pretty much the same as the last two AC games. You start off moving to a town with no money. You do the odd tasks for Nook to pay off a very small portion of your debt and then you go onto the rest of the game. The purpose of the game...well to make money and friends. This version still has Nook's store, The Abel Sisters Clothing design store, the Museum which has the observatory and coffee shop just like the DS version, and the town hall. You sell and buy things at Nook's, buy and make clothes at the Abel Sisters, and give donations of fish, fossils, paintings or bugs to the museum. The town hall lets you pay off your loan to Nook for your house and all it's expansions, send mail to the animals in your town as well as your friends in your town and others, give donations to better the town, report any problems, etc. Most of these features can be found in one or both of the previous versions. This is the core part of the game because this is the stuff that you will be spending most of your time doing.

With the Wii version you also get the city. Going to the city is just a bus ride away and one of the loading screens which is pretty fast. It also has some familar faces. The only difference is now the are there everyday for you to vist instead of just certain days where they randomly decide to visit you. This includes Redd the black market dealer, Gracie who has her very own expensive shop called GracieGrace which she can only been seen on occasion, Katrina the fortune teller, and a couple others. New characters are Kick the shoe shinning skunk and a hair stylin' poodle.

Another important feature to talk about is the introduction of the Wii Speak Microphone. This is the first game that utalizes this feature. You use it when visiting a friend's town or when they visit yours. It's much easier then typing with the wiimote or typing with a keyboard which is sold seperatly. The microphone works well. You can talk to more than one person in the room. Though background noise can be heard whether it's a good thing or not. But the background noise is minimal and not really an issue. I think this is a great addition to the game and the system itself. I say it's about time that Nintendo started catching up with the other systems. Now if they could just make it work for Mario Kart.

Visiting friends towns can also add new gameplay that the creators might not have intended it too. Many people have created their own games to add more fun to this already addicting game. Games like Musuem Tag, Sardines, races and scavenger hunts. Also visiting friends towns can help with trading for things you are looking for and seeing what's for sale at their town's store.

The controls for this game work well. Depending on your preference you can use just the wiimote or the wiimote with the numchuck. The wiimote works by a lot of point and click controls for choosing which item to sell to Nook or give to Blathers (the owner of the museum). You can fish by clicking A or if you would rather use it more like a fishing pole you can swing it up and down to cast and pull your fish out. You walk by pressing down A and pointing you cursor in the director you want to go, or if you use the numchuck you can use the joystick to walk around. To get to other menus on screen you point your wiimote to the bottom of the screen and a menu bar comes up with your inventory, a list of fish and bugs you've caught, your clothing designs and more. You can also save anywhere in the game this time by clicking the save button when the menu comes up. That is a great improvement to the game.

And now for the verdict. This game is basically like an expanision without the expansion. Many of the old gameplay can be found here with only a few upgrades. Serious AC gamers will want to add this to their collection. It's still a fun and addicting game. This game can also work from causal gamers to the most avid gamers. But the person who will probably get the most use out of it is a first time user to Animal Crossing.

I give it 4 out of 5 Stars for it's addictiveness and the first game to use wii speak.

Some Screen Shots