Time for an update from Twycross – the one on my Wii ,that is, not the actual one which would be all about tractors and drizzle. It’s been a busy week and I’ve started to settle into an Animal Crossing routine, of sorts…

On the first day, the first thing I did when logging on was check my mailbox – a letter from home! Hooray. “Dear Chris. I found this while I was out hunting for bargains. It didn’t look good on me, so I sent it to you. –Mom.” Gee, wow, golly, etc. This is revenge for that drum kit I never played when I was 10, isn’t it?

Later I found some gynoids and was initially under the impression that they’d replace my current mailbox, perhaps allowing me to store more items, that sort of thing. Turns out all they do is sit in my house and freak me out – so off to Nook with them.

Cheri, the red bear, asked me to deliver something to Rhoda – who, of course, now lives in Robin’s town of Serenity. Unfortunately her tight time limit didn’t gel to well with real-world commitments (like shipping a game) and she eventually grabbed the package back off me to deliver it herself. Oh well.

Speaking of Serenity, the net and fishing rod I bought there let me catch dinner for a wandering walrus, capture a flag stag beetle (2000 bells, thank-you-very-much) and start the long road to populating the town museum.

Oh, I have two new visitors – one, a nervous cat named Mitzi, is most welcome. The other’s a large bunny called Astrid who seems to be doubling as a con-artist, offering to exchange my wall for a floor sight unseen, or empty my wallet for some wallpaper. I’m steering clear of her, quite frankly, even if her name IS an anagram of TARDIS.

Astrid’s dodgy deals pale into insignificance next to that bloody raccoon, however. Having paid off my debt to Nook he promptly offered to repaint my roof – neglecting to mention that he’d also drastically increase the size of my house and then proceed to charge me a staggering 148,000 bells for the privilege. It’s not all bad news, though – I found a bed in the lost property office! Now I have something to lie awake in at night and fret about
my latest debt to Grand Vizier Nook.

I’ve been consistently impressed with the game’s pacing – the limited inventory, coupled with the sheer amount of collectibles dotted around the landscape, means that there’s always “just one more thing for the museum” – and, of course, you stop off on the way back to examine something, but your inventory’s full of fruit so you need to drop THAT off…  Wait, what, it’s midnight?

Whether or not the game can keep surprising me with new content is another question entirely – I’m a completionist, but Animal Crossing might find it hard to fend off the likes of Gears 3 if all it can offer me is the promise of finishing off my butterfly collection. Only
time will tell…