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IGN Review of SimAnimals Africa
Earlier this year Electronic Arts released SimAnimals on the Wii to mediocre reviews. It looked bad and was clunky to play. Ten months later EA has released the spiritual sequel with SimAnimals Africa. The game features a new, cartoony style and some different gameplay elements. Unfortunately they didn't fix the biggest problem: this game is boring.
Look everyone knows Africa is the coolest continent when it comes to animals (and Toto songs). So with dozens of super sweet animals to choose from, why does SimAnimals Africa feature a mere eight? The DS version boasts 13 different species, why doesn't the Wii have at least that? Sure, lion, zebra, giraffe, rhino, gorilla, gazelle, crocodile, and hippo are iconic of the continent, but the game could have benefited from a few more choices.
SimAnimals operates in two modes. There's a bird's eyes, "hand of god" mode that allows players to move around the environment, shake trees, select animals, etc. There's also a more interactive, virtual pet style mode. Players can feed, pet and play a mini-game with any of the eight species. It's all pointer and waggle based. Plays select a piece of food and use the Wii remote to hold it in front of the animal's mouth until it eats it. Petting involves using the nunchuck's analog stick to move your hand to a circle on the animal, then shaking the Wii remote to pet. Things like petting and playing the mini-games raise the stats on your animal, which is needed to progress in the game. What this means is that you'll have to play the petting game approximately 8 million times to level up your animals. To say it's tiring is putting it mildly. I actually beat this game four days ago, but it took that long for my arm to recover enough to be able to type out this review.
After players have made friends with the animals they can actually control them. Each animal has its own special moves: Elephants can water plants to make them produce more fruit. Rhinos can charge boulders to smash them. And Lions can, well, kill everyone. It's a new aspect and makes the game more fun than just watching the wildlife from afar, but besides using the animal's special move, there's nothing to do.
The cartoony style is cute, but all of the animals act like dogs. Seriously, you go to pet a rhino and he waggles his butt and pants excitedly. I get that it's trying to be cute for the kids, but I expect a game that is an animal simulator to at least somewhat accurately simulate how these animals act, and not turn them all into puppies.
©2009-11-06, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Look everyone knows Africa is the coolest continent when it comes to animals (and Toto songs). So with dozens of super sweet animals to choose from, why does SimAnimals Africa feature a mere eight? The DS version boasts 13 different species, why doesn't the Wii have at least that? Sure, lion, zebra, giraffe, rhino, gorilla, gazelle, crocodile, and hippo are iconic of the continent, but the game could have benefited from a few more choices.
SimAnimals operates in two modes. There's a bird's eyes, "hand of god" mode that allows players to move around the environment, shake trees, select animals, etc. There's also a more interactive, virtual pet style mode. Players can feed, pet and play a mini-game with any of the eight species. It's all pointer and waggle based. Plays select a piece of food and use the Wii remote to hold it in front of the animal's mouth until it eats it. Petting involves using the nunchuck's analog stick to move your hand to a circle on the animal, then shaking the Wii remote to pet. Things like petting and playing the mini-games raise the stats on your animal, which is needed to progress in the game. What this means is that you'll have to play the petting game approximately 8 million times to level up your animals. To say it's tiring is putting it mildly. I actually beat this game four days ago, but it took that long for my arm to recover enough to be able to type out this review.
After players have made friends with the animals they can actually control them. Each animal has its own special moves: Elephants can water plants to make them produce more fruit. Rhinos can charge boulders to smash them. And Lions can, well, kill everyone. It's a new aspect and makes the game more fun than just watching the wildlife from afar, but besides using the animal's special move, there's nothing to do.
The cartoony style is cute, but all of the animals act like dogs. Seriously, you go to pet a rhino and he waggles his butt and pants excitedly. I get that it's trying to be cute for the kids, but I expect a game that is an animal simulator to at least somewhat accurately simulate how these animals act, and not turn them all into puppies.
©2009-11-06, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved