Lions, monkeys and hippos OH MY!

When I first bought my DS I was having trouble finding a game I could really get into. I would go to the store week after week and read the back of the games and nothing ever jumped out at me. There was this one game I would look at every time because it had cute animals, but I would always put it back thinking..eh looks kind of kiddish. Eventually I broke down and I bought it. I have never regretted not buying a game sooner!

Zoo Keeper is pretty simple. Move the animals around the screen with your stylus to match like animals. The like animals disappear and everything falls down a notch. How could this possibly be so much fun? I will attempt to tell you!

There are five modes and I will start with the normal mode. In this level you have to "capture" a certain amount of animals to advance to the next level.

Then there is Tokoton. Same idea as the Normal mode but with a much higher quota of captured animals. Once you capture 100 of the same animal you move to the next level. That animal starts back at zero and you continue with the other animals at the same number working towards 100.

Quest is a funny mode. There is kind of a story line to it. The owner of the zoo has ten jobs for you to do. After completing each job he gives you a score. Sometimes he likes your work and sometimes he doesn't. He may heckle you or he may beam with pride. Winning this mode is sometimes more luck than skill.

Time attack is probably the most addicting level. You race against the clock to get the high score. You have 6 minutes to capture as many animals as you can!

There is also a 2 player mode. You go head to head capturing as many animals as you can. The more you capture the more time you take from the other player's timer.

The lay out of the two screens are colorful and cute. Up top you have your score, the tally of how many of which animal you have captured and also your lucky animal. When you capture your lucky animal you get more points. Every time you go up a level your lucky animal changes.

On the lower screen is your grid packed with cute animals who blink or make faces at you. There is a timer in most of these games...if you take too long to find a match the animals will explode off the screen and you have lost. To help you find matches you can earn binoculars. These too are on the lower screen. When you see your time is running out to find a match just hit a pair of binoculars and the game will show you a possible move.

This game is my favorite DS game. The animals are cute and the game is super addicting. So addicting that for a while when I would go close my eyes, I would see giraffes and alligators and all the animals. I know, I am crazy!