What time is it? Animal Crossing time!

Animal Crossing: Wild World for Nintendo DS is probably one of the most creative video games every created. Not only does it have cute little characters that walk around and talk to you, but it is based on real time. Even when you're not playing, things are still happening in your town! Every time you start the game, it looks up the last time you played and updates things in your town to make it seem like things were happening while you were away.

For those of you who are wondering, "What exactly is Animal Crossing anyway?", let me explain. When you first play the game, you see a person (you) sitting in the back of a taxi cab driving on a rainy day. The cab driver asks you a few things like your name, where you are going (this is how you name your town that will later be created), and a few other things that determine what your character will look like and what your town will look like. The cab driver explains some things, and after a few minutes of discussion and questions, he announces that you have arrived at your destination. You get out of the cab, and the game pauses to create your town. A minute later, you see yourself in your house in your newly created town, and you begin playing the game.

There isn't really a way to "win" the game, but there is a huge variety of goals and things that you can try to achieve. There are really no rules in the game; you just do whatever you want whenever you want.

Everything in the game is based on earning and spending money, which is a currency called "bells". To begin, you have to do a little work for Tom Nook, the owner of the general store. You have to plant a variety of flowers and small plants outside to spice up his store. You have to do a small variety of other odd jobs for him, and when you are finished he gives you a small amount of money to start paying off the mortgage on your house, which you own to him.

After that, you are completely free to do whatever you want. There are so many things to do that it's hard to sum it all up. There are quite a few ways to make money, but they all involve selling things, mainly those that you can pick in your town. You can gather fruit from trees, pick up sea shells, catch fish, catch bugs, dig up "gyroids", dig up fossils, and do other things as well. Almost any thing you catch, dig up, or pick up can be sold to Tom Nook for different amounts of money.

There is a museum located somewhere in your town with a variety of rooms. Any bugs, fish, or fossils you have can be donated to the museum and put on display. The goal is to fill up the museum with every type of fish, bug, and fossil, but this could take a very long time since there are such a variety of them. You can also donate paintings to the museum (which can be occasionally bought at Tom Nook's store, or from Redd, a salesman who comes with his tent once every week to sell things). If you go upstairs, you can create constellations that will show up in the sky at night. There is also a coffee shop in which you can buy a cup of coffee and talk to a “special character,” if they happen to be there at the time. Also, every Saturday night K.K. Slider shows up with his guitar and sings for you. He will even give you a copy of one of his songs that you can put in your stereo in your house to listen to.

In your house, you can place furniture, fish (which are put in fish tanks), fossils (which look like real fossils of dinosaurs), and bugs (which are put in bug cages). Furniture can be bought at Tom Nooks store, and can also be obtained during occasional town events. After you pay off the initial mortgage on your house, you can get an addition with a new mortgage. You can keep paying off the mortgage (which gets higher and higher with each addition) and adding new additions until finally you have a house with 4 rooms on the bottom floor, and upstairs room, and a third level room that is the "save room,” which is where you "sleep" when you're not playing the game. Up to four people (humans) can live in your town, and they all share the same house. Whoever is not playing can be seen sleeping on their own bed in the save room.

You can also customize the look of your character with new hair-dos and clothes. You can buy shirts, accessories, umbrellas, hats, etc. at the Able Sisters, a clothes store operated by two sisters: Able and Mable. Anytime you want you can switch your characters shirt, add or remove their hat, and make them pull out their umbrella (it really rains sometimes!).

The weather changes with the season, just like it would in the real world. In the winter, there is snow on the ground, and you can even build a snowman! In the spring there are a lot of stormy and rainy days. In the summer, the weather is usually sunny. And in the fall, the trees and grass turn browner and browner every week or so, so that by mid-fall the trees are brown.

There are tons of special characters that show up in the town at different times. Some sell things like special carpets and wallpapers for your house, while others trade you for things. Joan, a traveling salesperson, sells you white turnips and red turnips. White turnips can be held onto and then sold at Tom Nook's store for a price that changes every day. This is called the "stalk market", which is obviously supposed to represent our stock market. Sometimes when the price goes way up you can make a fortune if you have a large amount of white turnips. The red turnips can be planted and then dug up and sold to Tom Nook, although they don't usually bring in much money; it depends on how long they grew before you dug them up.

Animal Crossing: Wild World also utilizes the DS's WiFi capabilities to create an excellent multiplayer experience. You can visit other people's towns, or have them visit yours! Up to four people can be in one town at once, so you can have quite a fun time with fishing contests, hide-and-seek, or whatever else you can come up with to do.

But that's not even close to all the stuff you can do in Animal Crossing: Wild World. It would take pages and pages to explain the whole game, so I'll leave it at that and let you find out for yourself what it's like!

The only real drawback to Animal Crossing is that it can become too much of a chore after a while. If you don't play everyday, villagers might move out (others will move in, but if you like a certain character you will want them to stay), weeds grow, and things might start happening that you will have to fix when you play again. Playing everyday can be fun for a while, but eventually you won't want to keep up with everything and it will become a once-in-a-while type of game.

However, Animal Crossing: Wild World is still one of my favorite video games, and I would highly suggest getting it. It may seem to only be for small children, but the reality is that it is extremely fun for all ages, even if the graphics are a little kiddish.