For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to travel out to South Africa and embark on an epic safari, getting up close to animals and experiencing amazing creatures such as Lions in their natural habitat. Due to a lack of funds and being too busy with exams, I’ve unfortunately not had the chance yet. However, games developer Nobilis Games states their cleverly named new game Safar’Wii contains “wild animals so real that you won’t believe your eyes!” and that “Safar’Wii makes the dream of getting close to wild animals a reality!” These are pretty bold claims which got my hopes up for the game, so was I disappointed or did my long life dream come true?
After choosing a Male or Female character, you fly out to the unimaginatively named “Animal Island” where you must explore the island and find out what animals reside their, gathering more information about the animals and taking photographs of them. The main aim of the game is to travel around the island and take pictures of each of the 21 species in the game and send the pictures back to your Headquarters for evaluation. You will be given a grade for each picture you take depending on the quality of the picture, with the best pictures being awarded a Gold, average pictures a Silver and poor pictures a Bronze rating. The quality of the picture depends on factors such as how many animals are present in the picture, how far away you are to the animals and whether the animals are in the center of the picture, among other things.
To add a twist to the gameplay and keep the game interesting, your boss at Headquarters will often ask you to take a specific photo for them. An example of this would be taking a picture of a Giraffe eating leaves off a tree or an Elephant taking a bath. You will only be awarded the top grades if you achieve these pictures and therefore the game gives you something to aim for.
You’re not able to just run up to the creatures and take pictures at your free will due to the fact that the animals will realistically become scared of your presence and run away if they’re not familiar with you. The more times you encounter a certain species, the friendlier they will become and allow you to get closer to them. This is vital to taking the best pictures due to getting up-close shots and pictures from better angles. The familiarity system is a clever implementation as it encourages you to play the game more so you can progress with the animals, take better photographs and earn better grades from Headquarters.
To discover the animals in the first place, you’ll be driven around Animal Island in a jeep by a strange robot character known as “Robomaru”. Aswell as driving you around the island, Robomaru gives you advice along the way and acts as a tutorial whenever the game wants to introduce new elements. As Robomaru drives around the island, you use the Nunchuck to look around and try and spot any signs that animals might be lurking near by; for example the rustling of leaves, dust clouds and ripples in the water. Whenever you spot an unordinary event like this, simply point the controller to leave your jeep and go investigate. Spotting the animals is a small game in itself and could provide entertainment for younger children.
On that subject, it is blindingly obvious that Safar’Wii is aimed at the younger audience and anybody above the early teenage years is unlikely to get much enjoyment out of the game. The gameplay can become a bit repetitive if played for too long in one session and the simplistic gameplay itself of just taking pictures and sending them off to Headquarters might become tiresome for some. Young gamers with a keen interest in animals are bound to have tons of fun with Safar’Wii and the graphics will certainly help with this. Whilst they’re not “the most realistic animals ever” the animals, which are characters themselves in the game, look pretty good and move realistically due to good animations. Animal Island’s varying locations certainly acceptable and Safar’Wii as a whole is one of the Wii’s better looking games.
The easy to use control system will make the game a breeze for the younger audience to play and enjoy. You use the analogue stick of the Nunchuck controller to move your character around the island, with a slight push allowing you to creep closer towards the animals for a better picture and a normal push making the character run. Using the camera and taking photographs is extremely easy to do and this allows you to concentrate on the quality of the photograph you’re taking and not have to worry about fiddling about before the animals move and you lose a golden opportunity.
Travelling around Animal Island taking pictures of the good variety of animals and fulfilling certain tasks from your boss can be fun when played for short periods of time. The younger audience who have an interest in animals will likely get tons of enjoyment from Safar’Wii but the older generation of gamers or those who aren’t the greatest animal lovers should give this one a rent before purchasing.
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