Animal Crossing for GameCube

I recently rented Animal Crossing for the Nintendo GameCube mainly for my wife, since I wasn't in much of a mood for a simulation game. After watching the game for a little while, however, I could see how the game could become addictive on a daily basis, so now I'm wishing I would have bought the game, but oh well, maybe later.

Graphics and Sound:
The graphics aren't necessarily spectacular for this game. They mostly look childish and simplistic, but you'll get used to it and learn to like it. There aren't too many different sprites for the game, so one tree will usually look like another, so I don't consider this a very good thing. The sound effects are about what you'd expect from a game like this: average. However, when you first play the game, you might find yourself laughing at how the other animals talk. After a while, though, the Animalese speech may get annoying, but you have the option of turning it off. The music goes good for the game and always seems to set a certain mood for the game. The music also changes for the seasons, so you'll find yourself in a new musical environment occasionally.

Storyline:
You're basically a new animal moving in to a new town where you must pay off debts on your house and make friends with the neighbors. It's somewhat like real life, since you can plant trees and flowers, mail letters, pull weeds, and other things. After you pay off one debt, you're given the option to upgrade your house and pay off a new debt, so you'll always be in debt. Speaking of your house, you get to design it how you like with many different objects and your house is rated on design on a daily basis. As you advance through the game, you'll meet new neighbors and have new tasks to complete.

Gameplay:
The game is played in real life; that is, to say, that if it's 7:00 on your Nintendo GameCube, then it's 7:00 in Animal Crossing. Days and nights will pass, as will the seasons. Each day, you can do whatever you want, but you are restricted on certain things you can do each day, like the item shop is only open on certain hours, there are only so many items to collect around town to sell each day, etc. You may find yourself playing this game an hour or two each day, every day, to get what you want done.

Controls:
The controls are very simple and easy to learn. The game is very smooth and responsive, so you shouldn't have much problem in this area.

Other Notes:
Animal Crossing requires a full 59 (I believe) blocks of memory to store a town on, but one should be included with the game. Each town you create can have up to four people living in it, and your people can travel to town to town on other memory cards. Also, since this game IS real time, if you don't play for a while, then when you play again, you'll find yourself killing lots of roaches and pulling lots of weeds in the game. The game also supports the Nintendo Gameboy Advance, but since I don't own one, I'm not sure what features they provide. On a final note, you can purchase objects for your house that you can interact with, and I'm mainly speaking about Nintendo's. You can play classes Nintendo games, like Donkey Kong and Mario just as if you were playing them on an NES. Quite fun!

Overall
I wouldn't rent this game, really, since it's so much real time. It's worth the price you'll pay for it, plus you get the extra memory card. It supports more than one player (alternating), so you and your friends can compete for different goals in the same town, or visit each others towns. Great game, overall!