Animal Crossing, Some Pixelated Xanax

Winter is upon us dear audience! Finally the world has become cold and frosty in the regions of the Windy City. What better way to warm up after a soothing icy day than with a video game? Well let's add in some hot cider, a few blankets, and a cat. Bamn, super snugly and relaxed. Just make sure the video game is tranquilizing like a strong narcotic.

I'm wondering how many of you knew I was going to write about Animal Crossing? I did hint at it in the Ocarina of Time blog but you might not have reached the end of that long overly hyper post. Well in any case now you know audience. It's Animal Crossing, the brain melter of video games. More so than Harvest Moon which is saying something since HM is a farming game. For this post I am strictly sticking to Animal Crossing for Game Cube. The only recent sequel that I've played is Wild World which due to the "globe effect" made me incredibly dizzy. Game Cube only zone.

Right so niblet/small chunks of info time:

• You are a human character living in a town inhabited by personified animals
• Your landlord is a Raccoon (actually Tanuki) named Tom Nook, he's kinda a douche
• The game never ends, ever
• The "goal" of the game is to have a perfect town with fifteen happy inhabitants
• The only violence in the game is hitting a neighbor with your bug catching net
• You can visit friend's towns if you have their memory card
• My brother Pete despises this game

The game begins with you creating your town via K.K. Slider, the local beatnik beagle musician. He just appears playing his guitar under a lamp shade and asks you what the date is. This setting is how the game always starts except after you move into your brand new town you will be greeted by a random resident every time you load your file. It's just the game being Animal Crossing.

So the game actually starts on a train. You are sitting by yourself when Rover this blue cat decides to sit down across from you. Even if you tell him to stay the fuck away from you he still sits down and remarks on how nice it is to know there are still rude people in the world. Stupid cat.

The conversation with Rover not only enables you to make your name but also decide your town name, face, and gender. Of course in deciding your face you're in the dark. Rover just asks you a series of questions and depending on your answers if the face you'll receive. Rover also calls up Tom Nook since you don't have a house to move into. Nook has houses "dirt cheap too" and would be willing to allow you to move in. Sigh, Rover for being such a pain in the ass you actually saved our character's ass from being homeless. Still you suck.

After you arrive you move in, become indebted to Nook (this lasts a long while), meet your neighbors, work for Nook (being his little delivery slave), and then finally are free to do whatever you want. Ah once all the beginning crap is over the game truly becomes a drug. A delicious relaxing drug.

Animal crossing is whatever game you make it to be. The amount of hours Jenny, KC, and I clocked in on this game are ridiculous. Oh yeah, I've been playing this game steadily since I was about ten years old. It's just a past-time for me. Whether it be collecting specimens for the museum, performing rewarding tasks for my animal friends, partaking in holiday events, or just playing NES games; this game made/makes me happy. Time to talk about specifically what makes me happiest. Heh heh, fun part!

The coolest part of AC are the NES games, hands down. In AC you can purchase/win various NES games that actually work! Yes you can play a variety of NES titles in your AC file. My favorite would have to be Wario Woods which took me forever to win from my stupid Island resident Bliss. Stupid squirrel, just gimme the damn game!

There's also, Donkey Kong, DK Jr Math, Clu Clu Land, Balloon Fight (another favorite), Excitebike, Baseball, and a bunch more I'm forgetting. The NES games enable you to forget about pulling weeds or the massive debt Nook has you under. Instead you can drift into the puzzle world as Toad trying to save the forest from the likes of Wario and his evil bat-things. Ah, wonderful.

For the actual AC game (meaning not in the NES worlds) a definite favorite is holiday events, especially the winter festivals. AC has a whole calendar of holidays that mimic real life events as well as random days like Officer Day and Founders Day. The Christmas equivalent holiday is the best though because you can make a ton of money and the next day receive gifts and cards from your friends and "mom" due to the holiday season.

Jingle is the gift-giving reindeer who gives players gifts if you find him and bother him enough. What he gives you is part of the Jingle series which consist of rare pieces of furniture.

Rare equals high sell price. Muwhaha goodbye debt. What makes this event fun is the process of badgering Jingle. He really doesn't like to be bothered but he has rare gifts so too bad. Plus if you change outfits outside the acre he's in Jingle won't recognize you and will continue to give gifts away. Heh heh, such a giving spirit. Plus the furniture enables you to score a high HRA score so there's that too.

To any of you who have played AC the name Katrina will ring a bell (get it bell?! oh Animal Crossing humor at its worst). This panther (I always thought she was an otter) tells fortunes which often have comical effects. My favorite is where your character falls on their face constantly. It's just hilarious to be running and then to suddenly eat dirt. Haha, poor virtual Mary you just had your ass kicked by the ground. Trip again!

Katrina also can make all the villages hate you or have all the male villagers profess their love to you. It's a lot of fun receiving fortunes from this panther/otter thing. By the way this is how she predicts the future:

On the beach,

a back-talking

watermelon will

be eating butter

Heh, ridiculous. Butter.

Now audience I could go on and on about the many relaxing activities of Animal Crossing, seriously the list doesn't end, but that'd be missing the point. Whatever you love about this game is what you make it. The game has no deadlines meaning you don't have to worry while playing it. The time just continues without anxiety. Enjoy yourself, that's all.

Couldn't resist this. Happens so many times!

Now here's a tune that we AC lovers adore. It sets up the game every time we load the disc. Animal Crossing take me away, far far away from here.

Ok so the hint for the next post is one word: Deuce.