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Animal Crossing: City Folk officially goes on sale this week, although I'm sure some of you reading this are going to have it already. This game proved quite controversial when I covered it back at E3, as some of the features people expected to be there... well, weren't. And this seems to be the big deciding factor in terms of whether or not you want City Folk: do you mind that it's pretty much the same thing as the prior DS and GameCube Animal Crossing games?

What's interesting is that no one is even attempting to argue that, no, City Folk really is a new and different Animal Crossing experience. I've yet to come across a professional or fan review that doesn't simply start with the premise that City Folk is entirely identical to the DS's Wild World, save for a handful of new features. What seems to decide whether or not a given person has any interest in City Folk is whether or not they think the new features are worth it.

I don't plan on buying or playing Animal Crossing: City Folk, since I figured out the hard way with Wild World that the game's structure is not for me. You're probably wondering, though, is City Folk a game for you? Read on and see if some reviews help you make up your mind.

The high score, and one of the most interesting reviews overall, is Maria Montoro's coverage at Cheat Code Central. There City Folk is awarded an 8.8, which is nearly in Editor's Choice territory. Montoro is clearly a long-time fan of the series who isn't just okay with City Folk's resemblance to previous Animal Crossing games, but is in fact ecstatic about the game being essentially the same. Her logic is that changing too much of the core mechanics simply makes it not Animal Crossing anymore.

City Folk's presentation is almost the same as that found in Wild World, just blown up into big proportions. As soon as you pop in the disc, you'll realize the music is the same, the characters are all familiar, and the landscaping hasn't changed a whole lot. It's just bigger - bigger and better! As much as people like change, they don't really like sudden change. Designing City Folk in any other way could have been a mistake, and that's why I have to give a thumbs-up to the overall presentation. Players will feel right at home with City Folk, yet there's a nice amount of new features to pique their interest and expand the Animal Crossing experience even further. City Folk's new world is more detailed, and you'll find new stuff throughout, from tasty-looking mushrooms to cute birds perched on the town's bulletin board. The game also contains numerous new objects, characters, insects, etc. Also, the graphics are a joy, with a very smooth and polished finish, free of those nasty jaggies that take over Wii games nowadays.

omgNintendo affiliate and general cool guy Dave Rudden wrote the GamePro review, and wrote one of the most succinct descriptions about how Animal Crossing fails to work for a certain type of player that I've ever read. The overall review tone is best described as tepid, matching the 3.5 out of 5 score. There are a few amusing anecdotes about gameplay outlined, but generally more a sense of "not bad" to the text than "good". Anyway, here's the bit of the review that really hit home for me in describing the experience of an Animal Crossing apostate.

I played a lot of Animal Crossing on the GameCube, but I played it the wrong way. Let me put it this way; if my time spent with the game was a pie chart, the amount of time passed holed up in the basement of my home playing NES games instead of talking with neighbors and exploring would be Pac-Man. By the time I had decided to move out (or stop playing -- whatever), my town was overcome with weeds, my neighbors barely knew me, and my home was a pack-rat's dream. By all accounts, I should have taken better to the Nintendo DS' Animal Crossing: Wild World. But after a few days of play, I realized I can't vibe with uber-casual portable games. If I'm playing something on the DS or PSP for a few minutes on the bus, it better be filled with action and explosions.

So now Animal Crossing is back on consoles with its latest iteration, City Folk. The laid-back style of the game works wonders with the Wii -- it's a great accompaniment to casual fare like Wii Sports and Wii Fit, but it's not a bad choice to follow up a particularly intense session of Smash Bros. Brawl or No More Heroes. It's a lot easier to make new friends now, what with the addition of a city to combat the doldrums of the same eight animals in your town. Additionally, the Wi-Fi voice chat-enabled multiplayer (finally!) makes playing with friends much more conducive than it was on the GameCube. Still, the real lack of newness makes me wish I could still play old games in the basement.

The bottom scores come from some heavy-hitting outlets not known for being overly-vicious reviewers. 1up gave the game a C on its letter grade scale. Now, it's worth noting that most school systems consider anything between a 70 and 79 a C, but Metacritic aggregates a C from 1up as a 50%. This is unquestionably dragging down Animal Crossing's overall Metacritic rating, which is a mere 70% as of this writing. That said, nothing about Giancarlo Varanini's review text is particularly positive, so Metacritic's assessment may not be too far off.

The auction house is one of the few reasons to return to the city, as auctions commence at specific times during the week. Not only can you put your own items up, but you can also bid on other items beamed across WiiConnect 24 from other towns. The Happy Room Academy office is another point of interest, if not for the sole reason that you can get a better idea of what makes a good room, and even get ideas from sample rooms that appear in the back area of the building. Aside from that, the city area's pretty lacking -- even the other visitors provide little incentive to make more than one trip per day (if that), since they all tend to repeat the same things over and over, and rarely give any useful information or insight into upcoming events. And it certainly doesn't help the city becomes unavailable when visiting another player's town -- if you want to visit, you have to go back to your own town and then hop onto the bus.

GameSpy awarded Animal Crossing: City Folk a good old-fashioned 2.5 out of 5. Gerald Villoria's review text isn't actively negative, but there's a deep tone of boredom and dissatisfaction there. This is someone seriously unhappy both with the state of the new features and the lack of meaningful gameplay differences.

Despite the smooth introduction of voice chat technology, Animal Crossing: City Folk doesn't use the Wii's Wi-Fi capabilities to their fullest. While we were easily able to visit each others' towns after going through the friend code rigmarole, we just couldn't find any cooperative play experiences that made the effort worthwhile. Sure, we could chat with each other and exchange fruit, but there was a lack of meaningful activities for us to engage in together. Fishing, for instance, isn't the kind of thing you can do together, since there's only one fish onscreen at a time, and once it's caught you have to move on. Persistent fishing zones or some sort of competitive game we could play would have made this interaction more fun.

Increasingly, to me it seems City Folk is a game purely for Animal Crossing diehards and newcomers to the franchise, something both extremely casual and with a certain hardcore stodginess. It's definitely not for players who are all about finding the next new thing, and I think for most people that makes City Folk a game to pass on.

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