September 16th, 2002: Animal Crossing is released in North America and gamers across the continent discover a new addiction. It was the first game to really utilize many of the Gamecube's features in a creative way; the long wait for the highly ambitious game was well worth it. Today, several years after its release, Animal Crossing is still a top selling title for Nintendo, and a Player Choice pick. Most of us are still playing, and there many years left to play yet.

Animal Crossing: The Basics

Animal Crossing is an adaptation of the Japanese game, Doubutsu No Mori and its sequel, Doubutsu No Mori + (better known as Animal Forest and Animal Forest +). Animal Forest, which was released for the N64, was a big hit in Japan, and Nintendo originally had plans to release an American version for the N64 as well. However, by the time the American version of Animal Forest was in development, interest in the N64 had waned considerably, and thus the game was delayed for the next generation console, the Nintendo Gamecube.

Good things happen to those who wait, because releasing Animal Crossing as a Gamecube title meant that the game would be that much more ambitious than the previous version. In short, we would experience the world in Animal Crossing synched to real world time. Neighbors would come and go, holidays would be celebrated, seasons would change and for 365 days a year, we would always be able to turn on the game and find something new.

Welcome to Our Village!

The game starts on a train where your player runs into Rover the Cat. You end up telling him about yourself and Rover sets you up with his friend, Tom Nook, who allows you to live in a house he happens to own while you begin to pay off the cost of the property by working at his store. Once you're through working at Nook's Cranny (conveniently, the in game tutorial) you have free reign to accomplish a number of goals and experience the day-to-day surprises of the game.

The game has both standard tasks and creative tasks. First and foremost, the goal is to pay back your loan. After many house upgrades, ultimately you will earn a statue in your honor. Yet there are also numerous items to collect and catalogues to complete, so those of us who like to have the "perfect" game will have lots of fun catching bugs and haggling for furniture. Those who appreciate games with a creative flair can spend hours designing the interior of the house, landscaping, and designing clothing and wallpaper patterns. Additionally, there are weekly and seasonal visitors with mini games to keep your head spinning trying to manage everything at once. Then there's that pesky HRA score--all this work and we have to keep the house neat and organized too?

Become a World Traveler!

If you have a friend with Animal Crossing, you can take the train and visit their town. All this requires is putting two game cards with Animal Crossing towns into the Nintendo Gamecube data card slots. Board the train in your home town, and you end up in your friend's town to explore. Although you can't have one-on-one time with other players, you can leave them messages and even pick up items that aren't available in your hometown. Traveling also upgrades and changes certain aspects of your own game.

Players who also have Gameboy Advances and GBA Cable are able to take a boat trip to Animal Island. The island offers a variety of exclusive items, fruit, and clothing (as if we didn't have enough to collect already!) and activities that aren't bound by seasons. In addition, you can download Animal Island to your GBA and play with the native Islander there.

Nintendo Nostalgia

Players were able to interact with a lot of Animal Crossing furniture. You could sit on chairs, open wardrobes, lie down on beds -- but best of all, you could play your NES. When we were tired of working on the museum or chopping down trees in order to create a "perfect" ecological system, we went home and did what we so frequently do in real life: we booted up Mario Bros. Players could collect different NES consoles in order to play a variety of old school NES titles such as Donkey Kong, Ice Climbers, Baseball, Tennis, Clu Clu Land, and Balloon Fight. These could be played in-game or downloaded to your Gameboy Advance.

Scan this!: e-Reader Cards

As if the game couldn't have any more special features, Animal Crossing also had an accompanying series of cards that could be scanned to receive in-game items, patterns, music, or even games. The e-Reader scanner hooks up to the Gameboy Advance, and via the GBA Cable to Animal Crossing. Nintendo released 4 series of Animal Crossing Cards to keep us busy.

Population Growing!

An unexpected side effect of Animal Crossing was the growth of online Animal Crossing related communities. The trade feature in particular fostered numerous online-congregations over the years. Nintendo included a way of trading items without having to hook up consoles. Sure, you could leave presents in the mail for friends you visit on the train, but you could also give items by trading them for codes at Tom Nook's tailored to specific people from specific towns. You could email a code to a friend as a present, or try and trade for an elusive item in an online forum.

The Future of Animal Crossing

When a game is just that good, there's got to be a sequel. Animal Crossing: Wild World is set to be released on December 5th for the Nintendo DS, and an Animal Crossing title is rumored/in development for the Nintendo Revolution. Each game has an incredible amount of new features planned and we can't wait to get our hands on them. Here's to many prosperous villages!