Get a life? No thanks, I've got two already.

Animal Crossing is certainly one of the hardest games to describe, but by all means one of the easiest to enjoy. Colourful, sweet, vibrant, tranquil and rewarding: all these and more encompass a game that captures imagination while delighting every day on every level.

The basic concept of Animal Crossing: Wild World is simple: you are a young human –male or female, who moves into a village overflowing with bright colours, sweet sentiment and loveable animals. When you arrive, you haven't got a Bell to your name –Bells being the unit of currency in the world of Animal Crossing. Slowly, you adapt to your new lifestyle, learning to fish, catch insects, plant flowers, grow trees and interact with the surprisingly intelligent local animals.

If none of this sounds appealing to you, I urge you to try it anyway: at the heart of Animal Crossing is a very innocent and charming game that never fails to suck you in. Time passes in your village just as it passes in the real world: when it's 1pm in the real world, your animal friends will be having lunch and frolicking among the grasses and trees: in the depths of winter, snowdrifts and snowballs gather on the ground, inviting the creation of philosophical snowmen and late-night trips to see your friends by the glowing lights of their little houses.

In mechanical terms, Animal Crossing is an extremely advanced version of the Sims: you collect furniture and trinkets from the local shop to adorn your home. House too small for your stuff? Then sell enough fish, bugs and fossils to pay off your mortgage –while remembering, of course, to donate any rare finds to the museum. On your first trip around the village, your animals will begin to learn about your behaviour, remembering your birthday, giving you silly nicknames and asking you to perform errands in return for gifts and money.

At the tailors shop, you will find all you need to design your own wallpaper, carpet and clothing patterns to show off to your friends. If you design and display something good, chances are, the villagers will begin to wear your fashionable designs and compliment you on your fabulous taste. Fishing, though potentially dull and bad-smelling in real life, becomes something of an obsessive activity when playing: every shadow in the water could be that elusive and rare fish that the museum needs or sells for a ton of Bells.

In the DS version (if you didn't already know of the GameCube version a while back), the animals have become much more intelligent than their console counterparts: they now have far more things to say to you, far more topics of conversation to discuss: some will set you challenges to catch rare bugs and fish before they do; others will ask you to help complete a furniture series for their house, proudly displaying the items you give them and rewarding your kindness with more furniture, clothes, carpets and wallpapers.

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Animal Crossing is really what you make of it, it can be a secondary life, as it is for me, or it can be a quiet place to escape the hustle and bustle of your everyday life. Either way, anyone open-minded enough to try it will love it, but therein lays the problem: You see… Animal Crossing is not a game you can pick up and play for five minutes. You will not get any quick rewards in the game: it simply does not pay to play in short bursts. To get the most from the experience, you have to make the time for your village and villagers.

Graphically, the game is reasonably impressive. Everything in the game world is brightly coloured, the animals have a wide range of facial and emotional expressions and the detail is oftentimes quite surprising. The style of the game seems to suit the smaller screen insofar as anything larger would look a little basic in composition; on the DS there is no such problem.

The touch screen is put to good, if not regular use. Your little human can be controlled either with the touch screen or control pad, although the control pad is more accurate when you are trying to catch elusive fish and fast-moving bugs: in these situations, the stylus just does not allow the same level of control and often is over-sensitive causing mistakes such as reeling in the line or digging holes where it is inconvenient. However, the easy-to-use inventory system is made much easier with the addition of the touch controls and speeds match up quite considerably. Gone are the days of laboriously selecting items with the control pad one item at a time. Designing your on clothes with the stylus allows for far more organic designs, although the control pad is best used when precision is called for. After a week in the game world, you will find yourself fluidly slipping between stylus and control pad as the situation demands it, the controls become second nature and the game flows smoothly.

The only major gripe with the game is the sound, which is frequently tinny and becomes familiar all too quickly for my taste. It appears that the same tune plays at every time of the day, and there is little variation within the tunes themselves. The animals speak in a cute form of babbling that is funny and sweet at first, but after extended play it develops into an irritation. It is probably best to switch the sound off, or at least turn it down to a lower level in order to stop the brain from turning to cheese.

A nice feature is the regular events, such as K.K. Slider, who appears every Saturday at The Roost –the new café in the game. From 8pm onwards, this hip dog plays his guitar to anyone who will listen; he will even give you a recording of the music to play on the stereo in your house. All throughout the year there are special events in the village, and these range from the fishing tourneys on some Sundays, to the Cherry Blossom Festival during early April. Some are interactive and involve lots of running around talking to your hyperactive animals; others put you as a quiet bystander to events.

New features include the ability to stop animals from moving out of the village if you pester them enough times, meaning that you can prevent the emigration of your favourite friends and siphon off the ones you do not particularly like. Their conversation options now include asking you questions to which you can answer using a sliding scale of accuracy. There are far more fish, bugs and fossils than there ever were before and more new visitors to the village. Old hands at the game will find themselves surprised by how roles are now reversed and that certain visitors now perform a new role. Floating objects can be shot from the top screen using the new catapult, sick animals are healed with medicine and Tom Nook is still a slave driving, dishonest sham merchant who charges far too much for construction… *grumble*

The multiplayer aspect of Animal Crossing incorporates the WiFi capabilities of the DS to allow you to visit your friends without all the memory card swapping of the GameCube original. Opening the gate is easy and anyone online can pay you a visit. However, all your animals suddenly disappear into their houses when your friends arrive, which seems odd. When you have visitors, a timer can be bought so that fishing tourneys can be arranged between you, or a competition to see who can catch the most bugs in a minute is a fun addition to the mix. The internet facility is much the same -and in a move to keep gaming safe, Nintendo has prevented random strangers from arriving in your village by ensuring you can only have visitors that have your friend code.

Animal Crossing DS is an excellent investment that pays off in months to come, theoretically its lifespan is in years rather than hours, and any gamer who enjoys the prospect of collecting rare furniture, making new friends and living in a world devoid of violence, pressure and over the top competition would do well to consider this a very worthy purchase.

Now, you will have to excuse me: my prize turnip needs watering, and I feel like a spot of night fishing.