Welcome to Animal Crossing.

(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Byline: Leo Magno

ON THURSDAY it will be Halloween, and my wife Cristy and I have yet to buy enough candies for trick-and-treaters. We know all of our neighbors in Blue will be wearing the same pumpkin masks, and if we guess which one of them is Mayor Tortimer, we're gonna get a surprise.

At the same time we have to redecorate our respective houses because the Happy Room Academy has been giving us low points for interior design. I still lack one more Mega Oombloid upstairs and one Mega Lamentoid in the basement. I wish I hadn't sold the one I dug up on Acre B-3 for a mere 800 Bells. Anyway, the peach trees have borne fruit once more, and so I can sell them for 500 Bells each in Babyland where our son, Diego, lives with his cousin Kaipo. His other cousins-Miko and Robbie-live with us in Blue.

Have I lost you?

That's because I was talking about another world-one which exists in the Nintendo GameCube. I'm talking about Animal Crossing, that unique real-time life game developed by Satoru Iwata and Takashi Tezuka for Nintendo. In Animal Crossing, you get to settle down in a forest town populated by quirky, talking animals-such as an ugly talking Gorilla named Cesar who, for some reason I cannot comprehend, always refers to me as "highness."

The fun starts when you get off the train and Tom Nook, a raccoon merchant, meets you at the station. You pick one of four houses and pay it off from Nook by doing errands for him. Why one out of four? That's because up to four players can play in each town in Animal Crossing. Players, however, have to play alternately; the game has no simultaneous multiplayer feature ala Gauntlet or Hunter. …