SimAnimals: Africa (Wii) Review

SimAnimals: Africa, if you hadn't guessed, is essentially a wild animal simulator taking you into the beautiful continent to befriend and look after beasts you wouldn't necessarily keep in a dingy cage in one corner of the living room. The Africa package comes with its own distinctive art style that isn’t actually that bad – on the cover or booklet. However in the game itself we’ve got poorly designed character models housed in bland and repetitive environments, with a sprinkle of rocks and trees from time to time.

The game takes on two distinct flavours: a 'God' mode where you're able to pick up and grab objects and animals in your environment, and an arguably more enjoyable feature where you can take control of your best-friend-pets – though to do so is a game of trial and error. Pick one of the wandering beasts with your Wii remote, pump it full of food and give it a stroke or two, again with your pointer and whirling nunchuck. Much like any other pet sim it'll love or hate your gifts, eventually becoming yours if you treat it well enough. Once you've befriended one of the eight different species you can explore the fairly limited lands and take part in some midly enjoyable mini-games, one of which that involves tossing a ring. Yep, tossing a ring with the ol' Wii remote.

The animals themselves are rather adorable, ranging from the default zebra to furious rhinos, speedy gazelles and snappy, snappy crocodiles. Whilst the selection is fairly varied they all handle in similar ways; think puppy or kitten wearing a giraffe costume. SimAnimals: Africa didn’t need to be all correct to the laws of nature, yet there really needed to be more variety in the animals' behaviours as an incentive to keep playing through. That said, they each have a distinctive move – elephants can water your plants and produce more fruit, whilst zebras can kick things about – but it’s still a very shallow affair.

Each animal bares its own stats, essential for levelling up and keeping players hooked – it's a good enough formula that works but aside from petting, feeding and the very limited mini games there really isn't much to keep you interested during the whole level boosting process.