The first reviews are in for Animal Crossing: City Folk and it appears that while the game hasn’t delivered any new innovations, it is still a lot of fun to play, particularly for those who have not expereienced the previous versions on other platforms. Readers have given the game high marks, though site editors have been a bit more critical. Here are summaries of the top reviews:
Gamespot.com says: Animal Crossing: City Folk looks, sounds, and plays a little too much like its predecessor on the DS to be worthwhile if you already own that game. The visuals are cute and colorful, but dated. The cheery audio isn’t as impressive on the Wii in 2008 as it was on the DS in 2005. Furthermore, the gameplay is largely unchanged and, unless you’re at home with your Wii at all times of the day, it’s better suited to the DS. With all of that said, City Folk is every bit as engaging and entertaining as its predecessors and so, if you managed to miss out on those and have an hour or so to spare every day for the next year, you’d do well to move in. 300 Gamespot readers have rated it a 9 out of 10, while their 7 editors give it a 7.3.
Wii Fanboy reports: Animal Crossing: City Folk, despite lacking large strides in the innovation department, still manages to be an impressive well of fun gaming activity. Fans of the series will see this game as exactly what they want: more of the same. Score: 8/10.
IGN declares: Animal Crossing: City Folk wasn’t made for Animal Crossing fans. It was made for those that missed out the first two times. And for those people, you’ve got yourself a fine product. To those that helped make the first two games a success: maybe Nintendo will thank you some other way, because City Folk is only for you if you want to go through the same things all over again. IGN readers have given the game an 8.6/10 rating, while their editors give it a 7.5.
The reviews are in for Wii Music from around the web and they are mediocre at best. Here are just a few of the highlights:
Gamespot.com summed things up well in their review: “The game is charming and can be fun for short periods of time, but unless you’re buying it for a young child, it’s difficult to recommend as a purchase because older children and adults aren’t likely to get more than a few hours of entertainment out of it.”
IGN’s summary: “Our condolences to the two-and-a-half million people who buy this game.” You can read their detailed review here.
Gametrailers was even more direct - “DON’T BUY THIS GAME, IT’S NOT WORTH IT, TRUST ME.” Their video review is below.
Bottom line, unless you have kids under the age of 6, save your money…
So I’m wandering around the internet, as I am wont to do, and I stumble across this little gem of a game over at IGN called Opoona (being developed by KOEI). Now you might look at the screenshot above and ask why is a bland looking, cutesy, RPG a gem of a game? Well there are two reasons. The first being that it’s an RPG, which, at the moment, the Wii is lacking. The second, and more importantly, is that the game is attempting to actaully bridge the gap between casual and hardcore gamers.
Since the launch of the Wii Nintendo has been proclaiming that the system is bringing in new gamers and that those new gamers will become interested in gaming and move over to more hardcore games once they see how fun gaming is. But the gap between Wii Sports and No More Heroes is massive and I’ve always wondered how new gamers were supposed to jump from one to the other. Now along comes Opoona offering a simplified yet full RPG experience for beginners and hardcore alike. The game doesn’t even use the Wiimote’s IR sensing or motion control. It is almost completely controlled by the nunchuck of all things and seems incredibly easy to pick up thanks to it’s battle mechanics and friendly style. But it still has enough depth to be called a serious RPG. Seems like the kind of game that could turn a casual gamer into a hardcore RPG fan, as long as it’s good.
You can check out some of the vidoes the IGN guys did during their hands on session with the game. Especially interesting is the one where fighting is explained as it’s seems that the games battles are a sort of a real time/turn based affair involving charging strategies and vicious jelly things. I can easily see how this game could fall flat as the gameplay in the videos could get incredibly boring through the length of a full RPG experience. However, more members join your team and there is a social aspect kind of like The Sims in the game which could keep things very interesting and attract even more of those elusive casual gamers.
So if you’ve seen your kid or significant other neck deep in Final Fantasy game but were too intimidated to try it out for yourself, this might be just the game for you. This is all of course dependent on the quality of the final game. Now I’m just wondering if it counts as being innovative to not use the innovations on the Wii controller.
Mark | November 19, 2008
