the_rck

I've surprised myself by getting hooked on two Wii games.

No, I take that back. Cradle of Rome didn't surprise me. The hypnotic effect combined with the puzzles made it perfect for me. Cordelia does not like it when I play Cradle of Rome. It's dull to watch, and she doesn't actually understand it. She's trying to play now, but mostly clicks randomly. I think she'll have to keep quitting and starting over from the beginning as the levels start to get really hard. There's a point at which random clicking will not work.

The other game is more recent-- Animal Crossing: City Folk. I'm not sure why I'm hooked. It's kind of dull in many ways because I have no interest in talking to the characters that populate our town (called 'Chicago' because that was the first town Cordelia thought of). I'm bad at catching insects and only middling at fishing. I'm mostly uninterested in the clothing and furniture. Still, it's very low stress. There's something pleasant about a mortgage that gets paid off rapidly and that can be paid off without suffering.

I'm finding, though, that I want more space to explore. I'm remembering one of the first Wii games I successfully played, Petz: Dogz 2. I found that stressful because all the snakes and such interfered with wandering around and exploring. I liked having quests and trying to find things in different environments (with different challenges), but I didn't want to deal with getting attacked or have to attack anything myself. (The narrative cut scenes were also horribly long and dull, but that's another complaint.)

I know that Animal Crossing has some form of networking capability. I don't know how it works. I also don't know that it would give me what I actually want (more space to explore). Anybody have any experience with it? How does it work?

Is there another game out there that will give me something halfway between Animal Crossing: City Folk and Petz: Dogz 2?

How about more games like Cradle of Rome?

We have GameFly, so I can try stuff out. The other favorite for me has been Ultimate I Spy, but that's a play through once and then wait a long time to go through again game. We've loaned it to cherydactyl. I expect that we'll get it back about the time that Cordelia has the patience to play it herself.