Product Description

If you were given the keys to your own community, what would you do? Go fishing, collect shells or watch fireworks with friends? Build a snowman, exchange presents with family or decorate your house for the holidays? Take a trip to the city, go on a shopping spree or visit friends from all over the globe? In Animal Crossing: City Folk, life moves at a relaxed pace, but the world brims with endless possibilities. Not to mention, this special bundle includes Wii Speak. With the new Wii Speak Accessory, it's like you're all in the same room. The microphone sits atop the sensor bar and picks up the conversation of everyone in the room to encourage a more inclusive experience. The Wii Speak accessory requires an on-line connection.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2508 in Video Games
• Brand: Nintendo
• Model: 045496901370
• Released on: 2008-11-16
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: Nintendo Wii
• Dimensions: 2.03 pounds

Features

• Wii Speak is microphone included with the bundle. Multiplayer supports up to four players.
• A living, breathing gameplay environment where there is always something to do.
• DS Suitcase mode included which lets you carry your character from your Wii console to a friend's.
• Extensive customizing options allow you to visit the salon and give your Mii a makeover.
• Befriend your animal neighbors by exchanging letters, gifts and favors in order to bring their memories and stories from their old towns into the game.

Amazon.com Product Description
If you were given the keys to your own community, what would you do? Go fishing, collect shells or watch fireworks with friends? Build a snowman, exchange presents with family or decorate your house for the holidays? Take a trip to the city, go on a shopping spree or visit friends from all over the globe? In Animal Crossing: City Folk, life moves at a relaxed pace, but the world brims with endless possibilities. Not to mention, this special bundle includes Wii Speak. With the new Wii Speak Accessory, it's like you're all in the same room. The microphone sits atop the sensor bar and picks up the conversation of everyone in the room to encourage a more inclusive experience. The Wii Speak accessory requires an on-line connection.

Build your own community

Enjoy mini-games against friends. View larger.

Get to know your neighbors. View larger.

Play at all hours of the day. View larger.

Feel free to have company over. View larger.

Gameplay
You make the whole story, as you and up to three other players move into a town and just live life. Befriend your animal neighbors, decorate your house with cool furnishings, fill up your wardrobe, get to know the local wildlife, hop on a bus to visit the new city and just explore the world. There are a million different ways to play. Every charming animal character has a personality: some are grouches while others are chatterboxes. And there's no final goal or high score to hit. The game keeps going for as long as you want to play, and your town will always be there when you return. Move into town, buy a house and then do whatever you want. Time and seasons pass as they do in the real world, so there's always something different happening. Collect more than 2,400 items, go fishing for rare and interesting fish, catch all kind of cool bugs, dig up dinosaur fossils and buried treasure, hang out with other players or spend the day in the city. There's so much to do, and you have all the time in the world to explore it all.

DS Suitcase Mode
The DS Suitcase lets you carry your character from your Wii console to a friend's, thus giving people without an Internet connection the ability to experience multiplayer modes. Additionally, you can move your character from Animal Crossing: Wild World on Nintendo DS and play as him/her in Animal Crossing: City Folk.

Key Game Features

• There's Always Something New To Do: In the living, breathing world of Animal Crossing: City Folk, days and seasons pass in real time, so there's always something to discover. Catch fireflies in the summer, go trick-or-treating on Halloween or hunt for eggs on Bunny Day. If you're in the mood for something a little faster paced, take a bus to a new urban city area that's unique to Animal Crossing: City Folk. There you can catch a show at the theater or check out the sales at Gracie's boutique. But if you don't show your face back home for too long, your neighbors will miss you.
• Play With and Hear Up to Four Friends: Up to four people from your household can live and work together to build the perfect town. Design clothes and patterns, write letters and post messages on the bulletin board for each other, or play online using your broadband connection and invite up to three friends to visit your town using Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. With the new optional Wii Speak microphone (sold separately), it's like you're all in the same room. The microphone sits atop the sensor bar and picks up the conversation of everyone in the room to encourage a more inclusive experience.
• Get to Know Your Neighbors: The heart of Animal Crossing: City Folk is building relationships with the animals in your town as well as with other players. Befriend your animal neighbors by exchanging letters, gifts and favors. Animals can also move from town to town, bringing their memories and stories from their old towns with them. And since animals are notoriously loose-lipped, they spill all the juicy details.
• Express Your Personal Style: Customize your town, your house and yourself by collecting bugs, fish, fossils, art, furniture, clothes and accessories. You can also go to the salon in the city to change your hairstyle and get a Mii makeover. Plus, if you design clothes in the tailor's shop, animals will wear them and maybe even bring them to other towns.

Your Neighbors
Familiar faces such as K.K. Slider, Tom Nook, Blathers and Mr. Resetti all appear, as well as a bunch of new characters like Festivale host Pavé and Bug-Off judge Bud. Many characters who occasionally visited your town in previous Animal Crossing games have now set up permanent shop in the city, so you can see them anytime.

Special Powers, Weapons, Moves & Features:
Use the Wii Remote pointer to type letters, use items, draw designs for clothing or wallpaper, drag clothing or items onto your characters, interact with animals or objects, or lead your character around the world. Use Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection to hang out in real time with up to three of your friends. You can also send them e-mails and text messages from the game. Play at different times of the year to experience different activities, holidays and seasons. And when visiting a friend in another country, experience the holidays native to their culture.

Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection
Up to four people can play together in real time via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. The host opens his or her gate to allow friends into the town, where they can perform all sorts of activities: fish, write letters to townsfolk, shop at the store, swap items, play hide-and-seek ... anything. Up to four players can interact in real-time, communicating via text chat, mic chat and emoticons.

WiiConnect24:
Using WiiConnect24, you can buy and sell items to friends by participating in silent auctions, view actual players' homes in the Happy Room Academy office or send letters to other players' towns.

Wii Speak:
With the new Wii Speak Accessory, it's like you're all in the same room. The microphone sits atop the sensor bar and picks up the conversation of everyone in the room to encourage a more inclusive experience. The Wii Speak accessory requires an on-line connection.

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Customer Reviews

New controls, Same old game... and that's not a bad thing.
I'll assume you know the Animal Crossing formula by now if you're reading this. Build presence in town, live in town, town lives on without you, wash, rise, repeat.

'City Folk' plays much like a hybrid of the first game and the DS sequel 'Wild World'. It has the depth of Wild World, and the size of the original. You have a massive village to explore and settle into, but this Wii version also adds a town to the mix. Your time in the village is old hat... Fish, plant, deliver, design, chat, etc. Up the street, the town is essentially a strip-mall. You have your shoe store, theater, hair dresser, high end retailer, auction house, ATM, fortune teller and Redd's shady closed-door black market. It's not much, but it's great to have so much available at any time. And there seems to always be something exciting going on it town.

This version is much more refined than it's predecessors however. You can now save at any point; no more running home to hop in bed (though you can still save that way too). You have a quick access to tools via the direction pad now. There are more surprises packed around every corner. You can photograph ANYTHING and save it to an SD card for uploading later. You can auction off items for profit (or bid on hard to find items). And lots more. They really tried to make the interface easier to use.

This bundle comes packed with the WiiSpeak accessory. Essentially its a speakerphone for the Wii. Everything in the room can be heard back and forth. It has the same solid design and construction as all the other Nintendo made Wii accessories.

It's another day in Animal Crossing, so if you've never been, now is the best time to visit. If you enjoyed your time there in past, welcome back. If you never dug Animal Crossing... this game isn't going to change your mind.

A lot of the same, but some cool new features
The formula of this game hasn't changed much since the Gamecube version. I had wild world at one point but quickly sold it back because it was much of the same. City folk is basically an expansion on the classic. Don't get me wrong I loved the gamecube version and had to get this one the day it came out, but your town is exactly the same as the DS version besides the randomization of the layout and the animals who inhabit it. You still have Nook's, The abel sisters, the museum and town hall. Most of the fish so far of what I've caught can be found in the older versions, there may be a few exceptions. It's only been a few days and I can't even come close to catching them all. If you haven't played the DS version and have played the gamecube version. The post office is now incorporated with the town hall. It's still run by Totimier (sorry if my spelling of names is off) and Pelly is there. The museum is still looking for fish, bugs, paintings and fossils, but has a coffee shop downstairs where K.K. Slider plays on Saturday nights and a place to stargaze upstairs. The rude mole still appears when you shut off your game without saving or change the time. I've also already encountered the traveling camel that trades rugs.

So now for the new stuff. I also how the mic comes with the game to save you 10 dollars when you buy them together. I think it's great that Nintendo is picking up this speaking feature that the other game systems already have. And I can't wait to see what other games use this capability. Edit: (I got to use the mic in game with a friend. You can hear the person clearly. I was talking to more then one person in the same room and could understand them both. If you don't have the mic you can always type to the person you are connected to, but being able to speak freely is so much better. Typing using the wiimote is a bit tedious. But using the mic you can multitask. I am so happy that I bought the bundle instead of just the game.)

Another new thing is the city. I like how some stores are there that were from travelers in the past. This way you can always visit them. They also have new places like the theater and an auction house.

You can also now visit friend's towns over the internet. I had a blast visiting my friend's town. I went on the day where the flea market was held and could not only shop my animals house's but her's as well. It's also a faster way to get fruit that isn't grown in your own town.

The only question now is are all these new features worth it for rehashed game play? That is up to you, but I still enjoy this game.

Edit: I should talk about how the controls work for the game. You can either use the wiimote or the wiimote and the numchuck together. If you just use the wiimote you walk around by pressing A while you cursor is pointed at the screen and your character follows. For those like me, I use the numchuck with the joy stick to walk around. For thing like fishing, you can stay with pressing A to lift your fish out of the water or swing the wiimote up and back like you are really fishing to reel your fish in. You also use the cursor to open up sub screens. If you want to open your inventory for example, you just point your wiimote at the screen and tabs pop up on the bottom of your screen. Then click on the tab you want. Besides your inventory, you have tabs for friends, fish and bug collection, and more.

Fun for Grown-Ups Too
I used to have Animal Crossing on the Gamecube and loved playing it, so I was very excited to hear about a new AC coming out on the Wii.

My husband could only laugh at me as my friend and I rushed out to the store to get it on its release date--and it did not disappoint. I appreciated the fact that they kept it consistent with the old game, I was able to jump right in without having to figure a lot of stuff out. The things that I loved before were still there, with some fun new features.

I love being able to send mail to my friend's village with packages and presents. Its also great to actually be able to visit each others towns while we are online together. We're saving a lot of cell phone minutes in talking to each other over the Wii speak as well. Plus, I'm able to talk to her son as well (he is 3 and gets a big kick out of hearing my voice through the TV).

There is humor for adults (once of my animals told me, after I had been stung by a bee, that I had "bitter bee face"). Its a very relaxing and mellow game, I can play it for an hour or two, or just check in for 15 minutes when I have some time. It is definitely a de-stresser for me, I usually pop on right before bed to fish a little bit.

Its great fun for kids, but also for adults. If you are a parent with a child who can play it as well I imagine it would be a great bonding activity!