Nintendo delivers with Wild World

If you've ever wanted to fish and pick fruit all the livelong day, Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS should not disappoint. A port of the popular GameCube game, this new version contains almost everything that made the original so addictive, while adding enough to keep it interesting for returning players.

You arrive in your virtual town with nothing more than the shirt on your back and a pocketful of the local currency, Bells. However, seeing that you need a place to stay, local shopkeeper/handyman/Mafioso Tom Nook, who is also a raccoon, sells you a house.

Of course, since you have no money, he says you can pay him back at your leisure, but we all know what happens when you don't repay your debts, especially when dealing with a raccoon.

Now that you have a swank pad, you can go about the village chatting with the locals. It turns out Tom Nook isn't the only animal in the town; all of your neighbors are also animals, hence the name.

They don't seem to mind that you are a being of higher intelligence, however. They will interact with you like a human would: engage you in contests, share gossip, ask or tell you advice and even give (or take) items. It is even possible to form relationships with them to a degree and if they like you enough, they'll give you a picture of themselves as a memento.

While it isn't hard to maintain a stable town, the residents are apt to move out at the drop of a hat, and even a good friend can be hard to rein in. Still, there are always new critters ready to move in just as quickly.

There is more to do than just being a social butterfly. Tom Nook doesn't accept hot air as a form of payment, so you need some way to earn money so you won't end up sleeping with the trout.

Two of the more reliable sources of income are fishing and gathering fruit. Fishing is a simple test of timing skills and, while you may catch the occasional boot, a good way to score some Bells. The types of fish even change with the seasons. You can also donate fish to the local museum, as well as bugs, paintings and fossils.

Fossils in particular can help boost your income if the museum already has that same kind. The second prime method is selling fruit.

However, if you really want to rake it in, you need to get fruit that is not native to your town, but how would you go out to get it?

By using Nintendo's Wi-Fi Network and visiting other friends, of course. Not only can you get new kinds of fruit, you can visit their stores, share custom designs for clothes and even have a fishing/bug-catching competition. By exchanging key codes, you can open up to the whole world. Kinda.

The big problem with this code system is that while it may keep unwanted visitors out of your town, you can only have 32 codes saved at any one time. Still, despite the few shortcomings with the online play, which was one of the main draws of this game, it should still provide hours of entertainment.