Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City Review

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Let's Go To The City has all of this. It is, in format and progression, a cookie cutter copy of the other Animal Crossing games, especially the first GameCube one. There are seasonal festivities, like daily fishing competitions to see who can catch the largest Black Bass and challenges to see who can best match their home's furnishings to the month's theme. The lines of (brilliant) dialogue may have been rewritten, the visuals are sharper and brighter, and your choice of four homesteads are now scattered around the town rather than in a cluster near the bus station, but it's best to view Wii Animal Crossing as an expansion pack.

There have been changes to the interface and these are without exception an improvement. Moving around the town is as simple as pointing and clicking with the Wiimote and, thanks to the accelerometer, activities such as fishing are more slick and enjoyable then ever: a flick of the wrist to cast and another to reel. The d-pad allows you to instantly bring up your spade, fishing rod, net and watering can and the menu shortcuts are triggered by moving the Wii pointer to the base of the screen. If you're online then visiting friends' towns is much easier than it was in the Cube version and there's even the option to import and synch your whole town from the DS title Wild World. These are all tweaks of convenience, for sure, but positive ones nonetheless.

The city is where almost all of the game's new ideas come from, although, when you first step off the bus on a day-trip and it turns out to be little more than a cul-de-sac of six or seven boutique shops, it's easy to feel short-changed. The disappointment grows when you discover that at least half of these shops have been in previous games, albeit as travelling merchants who visited your town on certain days of the month. Katrina the fortuneteller, who arrived in her caravan to read palms, is now stationed in a rather underwhelming, dingy terraced store, a peek at the lifestyle behind the mystical curtain we maybe didn't need.

Up to four players can live and play in your town. Your neighbours can also move into your Wii friends list, taking with them any letters you might have written them to show and tell.

That said, the few additions are welcome. The up-market Gracie Grace department store sells expensive tailoring and items for your home and it's a joy to walk around. Harriet at Shampoodle will give you a shampoo, cut and style for 3000 bells or, if you prefer, will apply a Mii's head to your character. For 500 bells you can have your shoes shined, a cute way of choosing their colour. You can now actually visit the Happy Room Academy, its chairman Lyle a delightful Glengarry Glen Ross-style failed real-estate salesman who speaks in machine-gun staccato when setting each month's home-decorating theme. There's also a comedy club where you can watch an awkward stand-up routine, an 800-bell investment that grants you a new emoticon for conversing with friends, while a useful MMO-esque auction house rounds off the city's attractions. The extra space these shops have received is welcome but it won't take long for the novelty to wear off and after the first few visits there's not much reason to return.