SimAnimals

SimAnimals

It’s difficult to be critical of a game that is so obviously aimed at kids. But we’ll do our best…

Okay, SimAnimals, from the very outset, is hobbled with a pig-awkward control system that needlessly insists you make use of practically every button on the Wiimote and Nunchuk, is somewhat clunky in operation and boasts the sort of jerky, low-res graphics that would embarrass a £5 PS2 supermarket special. Not a great start for a spin-off of a truly blockbusting franchise.

That minor rant aside, gameplay begins innocently enough with a small patch of forest, a handful of animals and basic instructions on how make them trust you and take up residence. In the early stages this revolves around you - represented by a disembodied, white-gloved hand - making sure that everybody/thing is well fed and watered. Oak trees are shook to dislodge acorns to feed the squirrels, radishes planted for the cheeky racoons, trees uprooted so that beavers can build a dam - that sort of thing.

It’s untaxing stuff for the most part, fulfilling the various needs of your charges in order to release smiley-faced ‘Happy Energy’ icons that emanate from your furry chums and float upwards to fill up your ‘Happy Bar’. Yes, we nearly gagged at this concept too, but gathering this cheery resource is the only way to make progress in the game.

Completing certain interim tasks may well pave the way for a new creatures to enter your patch but filling the Happy Bar to the indicated limit is the only way to complete the current area and unlock the next. More advanced parts of the forest introduce bigger beasts with more specific requirements that are harder to satisfy, thus increasing the risk of generating Happiness-depleting ‘Sad Energy‘. Plant management becomes a more important part of the mix too, and your residents may start to wander freely between areas. Likewise you are able to flit between them, picking up resources from one part of the map to help complete a task in another.

So it goes in its own gentle, quirky and often (unintentionally) amusing way. Animals squabble in clouds of cartoon dust, the pesky neighbourhood cat eats the only male squirrel leaving a trio of broody females unsatisfied, mating rituals all seem to involve animals doing gymnastic somersaults with the resultant progeny springing magically to life without any kind of gestation etc. Hey, this is a family game, after all!

And it’s part of the gargantuan Sims franchise too, lest we forget. As such it pretty much works as an untaxing introduction to the basic series mechanics of managing resources and making sure everybody has everything he/she/it wants in order to thrive. Things do get trickier as larger areas of the map open up and you’re required to keep abreast of multiple challenges, but it never really feels insurmountable.

Yes, there is a decent enough game here, albeit one that is struggling to break free of clumsy controls and, even by the Wii’s low standards, a poor visual presentation. Then again the intended audience of younger, novice gamers probably wouldn’t remark on, let alone be put off by such things - but that’s no excuse for the lack of polish. For those reasons SimAnimals loses a mark and is not recommended for older, more sophisticated players. For a pre-teen Wii-owning relative, though, it’s probably worth a look.

3 out of 5