Wild Frustration in Animal Crossing: Wild World

Most of us play online games simply to have a good time. Others use it for a more... sinister motive.

You see, I've been playing Animal Crossing: Wild World on the Nintendo DS nearly everyday for over a year straight. The game is repetitive and overly cutesy, but like most people who have given it a try, I can't get enough of it! A large portion of the fun comes from connecting online and visiting other people's towns or letting them see yours. For awhile it's been very safe to play online; you wouldn't have to worry about cheaters, hackers, or anything of that manner. Until recently, however...

There are bored, troublesome players known as "seeders" who come into your town only to try to ruin it for their own pleasure. What they do is use Action Replay, a popular cheat device, to plant "seeds" into your town which are invisible buildings, rocks, trees, etc. and cannot be seen until the next time you play the game. You cannot get rid of these "seeds" and they often make the game unplayable, and if they plant enough of these, can break you cartridge entirely.

The only way to avoid them is to carefully watch who you're playing with and to be very cautious at all times while someone else is visiting your town. Jeez, lowlifes will always find a way to try the suck the fun out of something for someone. Maybe those much-criticized "friend codes" weren't such a bad idea after all...

Club Nintendo: What Everyone Outside of Japan is Missing

Here in the U.S. if you purchase a brand-new title by Nintendo, there will be a code in the box on the back of the game manual to register your game on Nintendo’s website. What do you get for joining Club Nintendo and registering games in the U.S., basically showing your loyalty to the big N? Possibly some free games? Nope. Neat little items based on Nintendo games? Uh-uh. So what do you get? Basically…. nothing worth noting (except for Nintendo now having knowledge of your home address and e-mail).

In Nintendo’s home land of Japan, however, you get all types of nifty items that will appeal to any hardcore Nintendo fan. For showing your support for Nintendo in the Land of the Rising Sun, you’d receive awesome Nintendo merchandise, custom collectibles, and, occasionally, even games. Some of the items in the past year given away to Japanese Club Nintendo members were Animal Crossing tape, cool notebooks featuring popular Nintendo characters, collectible cards, a holder for DS games and stylus, Mario-themed washcloths, dog tags, and Game & Watch Collection, a highly sought-after DS title that compiles three classic Game & Watch games onto one cart.

More recently, however, Nintendo is offering the choice of one of two items to chose from: a customized Wii remote featuring your very own Mii character permanently printed on it or another sure-to-be sought after eBay collectible: Tingle’s Balloon Fight DS. Tingle’s Balloon Fight DS is a bizarre DS update of the Nintendo classic balloon fight except it now stars that wacky tingle from Zelda: the Wind

Waker.

Hey, Nintendo… The U.S. (and the rest of the world, for that matter) buys Nintendo products just like Japan does. How ‘bout giving us loyal Nintendo fans around the world some exclusive goodies as well?