Regular reader Bridget Fitzgerald read that I hadn t played the original Animal Crossing before checking out the new DS version and took pity on me. Fitzgerald, who played the crap out of AC on the 'Cube and got some hands-on time with the DS version at Digital Life , sent me her own review of the game.

Usually I don t post reader reviews, but this one was both desperately needed and fairly well written. So here you go, a Animal Crossing addict s look at Animal Crossing Wild World:

You can use the stylus for everything— walking, running, entering
houses, fishing, talking to animals— everything.

I didn't know how long it would be until my luck ran out so I started clicking on all the menus to see what I could do. I checked out the inventory and my eyes immediately rested on the sling shot. Yee, sling shot. I ran around looking for animals or fish to shoot the eyes out of, but apparently that is not allowed (my first thought was "Gracie, you are so toast." Oh well). I did see an animal with a bug net on my hostile stalking mission, so it looks like we now have competition... (The first animal to get in my way while I'm running for the Banded Dragonfly is getting trash on their lawn.) Anyway, you can only shoot the sling shot up into the sky; I'm assuming that's to pop the present balloon. I didn't see any so who knows what shows up there. It looked like someone had already shaken every tree in the town so the ground was covered with the normal fruits, but also acorns! WOW. I was going to plant some, but decided to plant my hat instead because... I thought it was funny.

The museum has received a serious upgrade: there are multiple rooms for each area, and you have the ability to shift your view in the museum with eight directional arrows, initiated by clicking on a camera icon.

I donated a fish I caught to Blathers, but that went the same as
before. A really cool thing is that downstairs in the museum is a
little cafe— I sat down at the bar and ordered a cup of coffee from
some kind of animal-bartender. There is also a little table and a stage with a piano on it— who wants to bet K.K. shows up there and does his sets? SWEETNESS INCARNATE.

Back to the menus while you're outside— you have inventory (you drag
items you want to equip to your character, and you can also choose to
"Show off" your fish, and I assume bugs, which makes your character
hold up the fish in the same way as when you catch it), fish, bugs,
messages (I guess for when people visit your town), patterns and your
town map. All are easily accessible by clicking a small arrow icon on
the upper-right of the touch screen, which can also hide it. The town
map is great because you can click on each individual house to quickly
see who lives there or what public building it is. Oh, and in case you
didn't know, the town scrolls smoothly this time so it isn't divided up into grids. It's kind of like walking on a barrel, if you can picture that.

Nook's has an ATM-ish machine for points, which I hope is replacing
those space-hogging tickets this time around. That means more places to stash my wardrobe, pinwheels and fans! Hooray. There were the normal assortment of items in the store, but I saw a message in a bottle for sale as well (and red cosmos!) which I guess might be sent wirelessly to your friends? I don't know. I didn't have room in my inventory and didn't go back to Nook's because I was running around like a crazy person before karma decided I had just had too much fun already, so I'm not really sure what that is for. Intriguing though.

I'm not completely sure how the post office works this time, but I saw
what looked like a freezer and just had to click on it of course, and
it turned out to be a recycling bin (I don't know if that replaces the
dump, because I didn't see the latter— it's possible I overlooked it
though). In it I found a knight's helmet and immediately ganked that,
putting some hideous tie-dye shirt a weird frog animal gave me in its
place. I didn't have to, but I thought the next person might want to
find something in there. I didn't talk to Pelly (I remembered the
tunnel-like town entrance and immediately ran over there) so I don't
know what is up with the storage system.

The entrance to your town is now a tunnel-ish black arch, which leads
to a gate with two guards once you enter it. I don't remember what the
one on the left said but whatever it was, I had no use for it; the one
on the right though was talking about visiting people via WiFi or
DS-DS, so I was all over that. Unfortunately (predictably?) this DS
didn't have a friends list so I couldn't go visit anyone. Foiled again!

I finally found and entered [my] house, which had a first floor and an
upstairs. I couldn't figure out if there just wasn't any music in the
radio or if there was something wrong with me because every time I
tried to play a tune I'd pick it up. Five times of that and I said
Screw It and fled to the upstairs. There was a single bed and a
telephone— I planned on leaving my dude there in bed for the next
person because I thought it would be funny, but when I laid down it
gave me the option to save (replacing the gyroid I guess), and when I
canceled he hopped up again. :-\ The telephone has some weird options
that didn't make much sense to me like something about a cat, and if it was OK for the cat to move in? I really couldn't tell you what is up with that. Can you pick which animals move into your town?? No more
Ursala?! Sadly, I can neither confirm nor deny this.

At about this time I caught a glimpse of a little girl behind me
reflected in the overhead screen who looked like she was about to gnaw
her own hand off so I stopped playing... I didn't get to check out the
police station or the Abel Sisters, or search for the dump and other
landmarks, but I don't really care. I got a good idea of what I can
expect and a hint of upgrades from the GCN AC, and all I can say is I
cannot wait for 5 December.

Thank you Fitzgerald for the in-depth peek at the game and I promise to play the crap out of it when it hits stores.