My friend got so excited when he looked over the box for Sim Animals. A very pertinent question arose: what would happen if a bear came into contact with a shark? Though this age old question has mystified mankind throughout history, we were hopeful that this EA title would shed light upon it. Unfortunately the shark was not one of the animals available on EA's latest sim game. However, the bear was. And so began our adventure into the forests of Sim Animals to try and befriend a furry critter or two.

Sim Animals is a continuation of the popular franchise, The Sims, with the exception that you're now overseeing wildlife and their habitat. Its whole premise is to befriend the inhabitants of the forests through providing them with food, shelter and some good old lovin' (platonic and romantic!). Players utilize the Wiimote as a cursor/disembodied hand to interact with the environment (e.g. feeding acorns to squirrels, growing seeds into trees, throwing the odd animal or two, etc) in order to cultivate their own virtual Utopia. As the animals warm up to your natural crib, they will begin to interact with each other. While you oversee the running of matters you may catch a glimpses of frolicking, fighting or even baby making! Though it is kind of funny, when games require their cutesy characters to make out in order to complete a challenge, I can't help but feel a tad embarrassed! Just a strange character quirk I possess.

Players begin with an empty forest area, and animals will wonder in as the game progresses. These critters will not trust you immediately and you'll have to win their trust by feeding them, playing with them and providing them with the necessary foliage they require. As they begin to trust you, they will allow you to pick them up and place them in your backpack - the backpack is a sort of inventory where you can store all sorts of different things ranging from seeds to animals. What got me so pumped is that when you complete a challenge and win the animal's trust they play a little award clip and announce that you have mastered the "WAY OF THE SQUIRREL". Believe me, it was pretty awesome. When such challenges are completed, whimsical music breaks out to help you savour the moment. I just wish that these tunes could have been woven into the ambient sound. The music is handled quite well and I wouldn't mind playing while such tunes hum in the background.

Players will also be required to develop the habitat: rocks, trees, flowers, seeds and a variety of other objects can be moved by pointing and grabbing. New forests, animals and objects will be unlocked as challenges are completed. If you're feeling a bit too chilled to take on tasks, you can also just roam around and interact with the animals and essentially do anything you want - the power is in your hands and you can choose to be awesomely good or totally evil. But be warned, your animals will adapt to how you treat them, so don't expect them to eat out of your hand after throwing or smacking them around - the virtual karma will get you. In some ways, it feels quite relaxing to watch your animals roam around the place while the ambient forest creaks in the background.

The gameplay is really easy to pick up and seems quite suitable for younger children. What's great for parents with young kids is that Sim Animals supports up to four players, which will allow mom or dad to help the little one out. The downside to this control scheme is that everyone can control the movement and this can become quite chaotic if everyone wants to do different things. I'm not sure whether this title will hold the attention of more serious gamers but I'm sure that it could provide quite a bit of fun for a young family.

Something that I have been looking forward to for a long time is playing a simulation/strategy game on the Wii. It's really cool being able to buzz around the screen by the power of the Wiimote. The controls are relatively good and fairly intuitive. To do things such as shaking fruit out of trees or playing with animals, a mere waggle of the Wiimote will do the job. The one odd choice was to map the rotating camera view to the analogue left and right - I feel this should have been used for scrolling. Players can also choose between a close up or distant view with a press of a button. Something that was a bit funny yet which needs consideration, was that my friend (his name shall be withheld to preserve his honour) found that his wrist got sore from wielding the Wiimote while tending to his kingdom. People who aren't used to playing the Wii often struggle with strain from the Wiimote. Being the king of the jungle is a hard job indeed.

Unfortunately, this game is plagued by a number of issues which prevents it from being a real winner. One of the first issues is that the frame-rate is really bad, and the graphics comes across as rather buggy and unappealing. A game such as this should have the most beautiful rendering, so beautiful that players should be distracted from tending to their animals by the awesome surroundings and effects. What should be observed as lush grass comes across as polygonal landscaping with a grainy texture. And don't give me the typical "Wii isn't powerful enough" excuse. If Mario Galaxy's awesomeness can be realized for the Wii, then so can this. There just seems to be a minimal attempt to polish up the rough edges, figuratively and literally.

Another issue is that the animals' interactions are often disgustingly glitchy. Sometimes they will just ram into each other with one flying into the air in the most unnatural motion possible. And as they do this they make the most horrible grunting sounds - it's just too sad to be comical. As they moved closer to each other they sometimes shudder and when they eat food it just disappears without the feeblest attempt at animation. I really get angry when I see one animal standing, nay floating, on top of another animal. The game nearly feels like it's only 85% complete with so many of the little things which make games successful merely glanced over.

At the end of the day, a charming game with a whole lot of potential has been let down by developers being too lazy to finish it off. One could argue that the game is for young kids who won't be bothered by such glitches. But an attitude such as this is defeatist and is cheating gamers in a certain way. It is a fun game to play with little kids and the co-op feature goes a long way to help this. But if you're looking for deep and meaningul sim, you'd do well to wait for the next offering.