Animal Crossing: Part 3 - Time to meet the City Folk!

Hello everyone!
Welcome to Part 3 of my Animal Crossing segment!
ONLY ONE MORE GAME TO TALK ABOUT AFTER THIS!

This week we'll cover the 3rd game in the series - City Folk for the Wii!

This game was - in my opinion - not as great. I didn't stick with this one for long but that isn't to say it wasn't worth playing. On the contrary there were many changes that improved the gameplay and a lot of users liked. For instance, there were new shops in the City. Players could take a bus to the city and visit the Happy Room Academy, get your shoes shined, and get a haircut or a makeover! Another cool new feature to this game was being able to rotate through tools with the D-pad on the wiimote. This is super convenient!! It was a pain in the butt opening the menu to try and catch a bug quickly.

The bundles of new animals and shops is really what made this game great. But as I said, it was missing something for me. Mainly I think it was that I was so hooked to my portable device that it was hard for me to sit in front of the TV to play again. Not to mention fighting over it with my sisters when they wanted to watch a movie or something.

Give this game a chance for sure. Just because I didn't latch onto it doesn't mean you won't. It's a fun time for sure if you liked the first two of this series.

Keep an eye out for the 4th and final portion of the Animal Crossing series segment. I will be posting soon since I missed a week.

Thank you for stopping by and be sure to comment or subscribe!

Animal Crossing: Let the Games Begin!

I am back! The last two months have been ridiculously crazy and I have a lot to share on my personal blog but for today I will talk about another one of my favorite games: Animal Crossing! 

My two best friends and I all have the same Limited Edition: Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past 3DSXL. We got them all on the same day together and just a couple of weeks ago all got the same Animal Crossing tattoo. (We know, awesome!)

(Picture to come)

So for those of you who haven't played Animal Crossing before I'll start with a little prelude so that you can get the general gist of the game before I start spouting off random jargon that won't make any sense to you. Since there are 4 games in this series I am going to break these up into 4 posts! Here we go!

This was the original Animal Crossing released on GameCube in 2004. I got this game around that time but not after hearing about it from a group of guys in my class. They talked about it all day nonstop and would say how they were up all night playing. There was never any preface to this conversation and they only spoke about random things like "Tom Nook..." "fishing..." "centipede..." so I never understood the game at all until the summer after it came out when I received it for my birthday from my grandparents. I was ELATED! After so many months of hearing about it and being curious (and I wasn't old enough to use google searches at this point...) so I was eager to experience the magic first-hand. BOY WAS I NOT LET DOWN IN ANY WAY! I don't think that people would say I have an addictive personality. I tend to be pretty rational and responsible about my interests and hobbies. This game changed everything for me. I played this game all summer long. I only stopped to allow my sisters a turn to play which pissed me off greatly because they liked to pull the, "I am trying to find a bug - then you can play" card. The aggressive relationship in my family drove this hostility to the point of being unable to play for longer than 2 hours. My parents mandated a timer be set and supervision to occur when playing. It was a nightmare for me! But of course, someone always has to ruin the fun. 

Anyways, I'll explain the game! You start the game on a train on your way to a place you've never been. You're greeted by a friendly cat named Rover. He asks you a number of questions which are prompts for town decisions. You decide what your name is, what the name of your town is, and there are a variety of questions he asks that determine how your face will look. That's about as customized as you get in this game! When you leave the train you are then greeted by Tom Nook - Local Store Owner/Real Estate Agent. He sells you and remodels your home throughout the game. You also work for him for a small time in the beginning of the game. The whole point of the game is to make money, renovate and make your home perfectly decorated so that it is feng shui. You do favors for your townspeople, dig up fossils, collect fish and bugs, plant fruit trees, and turn your town into a beautiful garden! And did I mention your townspeople are adorable anthropomorphized animals? YES! They are. 

These cute bundles of joy are your citizens! They all have different personalities and interests as well as special customized homes. The kind of homes that in this game - you can't mimic. But that will come later! 

Some other cool features of this game is the island adventure! If you have a gamecube connector cable to the gameboy advance you can explore the island by taking the boat at the dock! Kapp'n the wise-cracking bard of the sea takes you on a short boat ride over to the tropical island accompanied by an adorable song. On the island you'll meet a villager who lives there. The island has coconuts - which you can sell for a high price on the mainland - and it's always summer on the island so you can catch summer fish all year round! 

Want to make big bucks? The best way to is through the "Stalk Market". This cute little pun of a business venture works through Joan! Joan sells turnips on Sundays before noon for a small price per bushel. Throughout the week the price that Nook will buy them for changes, so if you check everyday you can make a profit! There is also a ton of holiday events, weekly events, monthly events, surprise visitors, and special contests! 

This game is fun for all ages, easy and yet complex. There's plenty to do in it so you won't ever be bored. This game is definitely a game that needs to be played if not daily than definitely regularly. If you don't play daily not only will your townspeople be mad but your home will be filled with cockroaches and your town will be covered in weeds (over the span of a week or so of not playing - a day or two won't hurt). 

I love this game and since I am a huge fan of all things cute it's definitely a great game for me! Plus, since the game isn't stressful really it's good for winding down after a long day of work. 

Leave your comments below! See you next week! 

This week: Consoling Consoles

This week I want to cover some consoles. 

Recently I have been playing my 3DS and wondering, "What is so bad about Nintendo consoles?" I only hear bad things about the WiiU. I don't own one myself so I probably am not a good source of information but from what I have played on it, it seems to me that it's a pretty cool system. Looking at games that it offers alone doesn't prove my point at all. Most of these games find cheap ways to use the control screen that seem wildly unnecessary. BUT. Look at Grand Theft Auto 5. This game is working on integrating technology that will allow the player to check things on a different device while they play. Isn't that what Nintendo is already doing? While they haven't allowed the WiiPad to live up to it's true potential Nintendo can't be mocked for something that other developers are trying to incorporate. 

Looking realistically at Nintendo though - they definitely have a monopoly on the portable systems. And I'm not talking about the 2DS (which probably stands for 2 damn stupid). BAD JOKE. But Nintendo's platforms went down after the Nintendo 64. That was a great system - but the Gamecube was .... whatever. I liked it but it wasn't the best system.

3DS is still better than the WiiU long after it's release - constantly coming up with limited edition versions that sell like crazy. I own the original Legend of Zelda 3DS and have the new Legend of Zelda 3DSXL on preorder. If could have gotten the Pikachu one when it came out I so would have. The great thing about the 3DS is that it's a good size and it has a ton of features that fixed the previous flaws. Although I do wish I could assign my own background photo. The thing that I love most about the 3DS is the major improvement on the internet connectivity. I remember being on my original DS sitting on the ground next to the computer so that I could get enough WiFi and it was very dodgy even then. Now I just have to be home and anywhere in my house I have internet.
The only thing that I wish was on the 3DS is the ability to save more than 3 networks. My home, work, and fiance's is not the only 3 places I need WiFi and it would be nice not to have to go into my settings everytime to change it.

I've owned a Playstation 2 but that's it. I only played Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts on it and I never had money to buy the PS3 and my dad bought the Xbox 360 instead so ... that is a system I have neglected. But, I have nothing against the PS3 and look forward to the new one. PS2 was my introduction to more serious games so I thank Sony for that.

Xbox 360 has been a love/hate relationship. I love Xbox because a lot of my favorite games are on it (which I realize is a lousy argument because those games are also on PS3..). I hate Xbox because it does shitty things as a company. No backwards compatability on the new system? I almost flipped my lid. But before I make this a Xbox One vs. PS4 debate I will just end it there. Xbox has been something that I've had for a very long time and that alone is the reason that I would maybe get the Xbox One. But, my wedding is coming up and Hawaii won't be free! SO. I probably won't get one of the new consoles for a while. I think in the end my fiance and I will get the PS4 just because it's overall a better system.

When the consoles first got announced I was all in for the Xbox One. Again- because I like consistency. (That's why I have 2 legend of zelda 3ds's..) My fiance insists that we get the PS4 because it really is the better choice. My argument was only that I play more video games than he does so I should pick which system we get. But after many articles and podcasts I have softened up the PS4.

That's it for this week. Please leave a comment below and follow/subscribe/orwhateveritisyoudo. :)