Animal Crossing

If you have gone through my blog, you would have noticed that Animal Crossing stands as one of my favourite games on the Nintendo DS and I have you know that it has the longest play time as well. Most of my friends would beg to differ and they tend to go for Mario Kart DS and Winning Eleven DS.

After a long day of doing stuff in real life, you turn on the DS and Animal Crossing, and then what? Most players know the answer, which is "Do more stuff!". The list is pretty comprehensive: collecting fruit, digging for fossils and stuff, planting flowers and trees, writting letters, visiting towns, talking to other residents , selling stuff, upgrading your home, etc, etc.

It sounds pretty mundane but it's fascinating when you start playing it. I recommend playing in short bursts though, as there's only a limited amount of things that you can collect, buy, sell, dig up in a day but other than that, have fun in that "Wild World".

Got to Get 'Em All?

Gashapon (Capsule Toys)...once you buy one, you'll want to continue to collect them all. Previously I made the mistake of purchasing a single gashapon from the Animal Crossing collection only to find out that the collection sold out a couple of days later, preventing me from completing my collection.

So, when word got out last Sunday that gashapons from a new Animal Crossing collection were available for sale, I made an order for all 8 figures. Play-Asia's free shipping option is pretty fast as I received the package this morning.

These figures come in the same size and in the same stackable display cases as those from the previous collection (review available here). The difference is that the figures from this new collection are a tie-in to the new Animal Crossing movie released in Japan.

Out of the 8 figures, I can only identify several familiar faces, such as Tom Nook, Redd, Blathers and the cab driver. The quality of the gashapon is high and the figurines themselves are well painted, capturing the look and feel from their video game (or perhaps, movie) counterparts. My only gripe is that some of the figurines don't stay stuck to their display case bases. I use a tiny amount of water soluble glue to resolve this problem.

That minor issue aside, these figurines do look cool stacked together. There are nine in the picture as I included my previous gashapon with the rest of the set:

Get your own set of Animal Crossing Gashapons from Play-Asia (here)

Video Game Hijinks

This post is inspired by a friend of mine, his Winning Eleven DS hijinks never fail to amaze me. Today he managed to utilise the goalkeeper to score a goal and he left my DS in hibernation mode just to show me the replay, which was really very cool.

Come to think of it, there are other games that allow you the opportunity to do some pretty crazy stuff. Animal Crossing Wild World lets you plant pitfall seeds into the ground. Watch and laugh as visitors and townfolk fall into holes when they step over these seeds.

In Mario Kart DS, you'll need to be a little lucky to get two Blue Shells in a row in the time where you hit one power-up followed by hitting the immediate power-up down the track. But if you are lucky, you can torment the race leader with two successive Blue Shells hits; which would probably make him/her pretty pissed at you if you are doing it in a WFC match (but its worth it for a good chuckle).

Worms: Open Warfare is pratically a large sandbox for performing crazy stunts. Take one of the fearless worms of your team on a ninja rope and drop a land mine on top of a previously inaccessible opponent or shoot a rocket against the wind and see where it lands. It's a pity though that the game has sub-par graphics.

Go Wild in this Wild World...

You know how some people have the compulsive habit of collecting stuff? Well, Animal Crossing: Wild World scratches that itch and then some.

Wild World can be best described as a small-town simulator. Despite the word "small", the game has many things going for it. Your in-game character is created based on your answers given to the taxi driver that brings your character into the town of Animal Crossing.

While in town, do what the residents do. Go about talking and waving to residents and do stuff like fishing, planting stuff, digging stuff up, collecting fruits, designing clothes, writting letters, drinking coffee in a basement cafe beneath a museum and as mentioned earlier, buying stuff to fill your expanding home.

Some of the activities are geared towards generating income which in turn pays off your housing loan. Yes, there's no escape from the realities of life even in a game.

Having said all that, Animal Crossing is best played in short bursts as everything happens in real time. There's no rush and you can invite friends over to your town via the WFC service for a change. You get to trade for stuff that is not available in your town amongst other things!

Get your copy of Animal Crossing: Wild World at Play-Asia.com!