If your family enjoys watching nature shows on channels like National Geographic or Discovery, then Wild Earth: African Safari on the Wii might be a familiar and enjoyable experience.
Originally released on PC in 2006, Majesco has updated Wild Earth: African Safari for the Wii, a suitable choice considering the console's popularity among families and younger gamers. The game seamlessly blends nature education and photo safari gameplay, making learning fun for players of all ages.
Though the game has goals and objectives, playing Wild Earth feels more like being immersed in a simulation. Armed with a camera, courage, and two narrators, players explore the African plains, observe wildlife, and capture top-notch photographs across 11 excursions. You'll travel on foot, by helicopter, and in a jeep to fulfill your assignments.
The game accurately presents flora and terrain from the Serengeti National Park in Africa.
Gameplay and Features
In each mission, you’re given a list of pictures to take. Primary objectives must be completed to progress, while secondary goals increase your score. A limited number of shots can be saved to view as a slideshow. At the end of each mission, you can read an informative article about the creatures you encountered, featuring your images.
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The animal subjects are varied, including lions, crocodiles, hippos, cheetahs, elephants, giraffes, ostriches, leopards, bats, frogs, hyrax, warthogs, rhinoceros, wildebeests, and other photogenic creatures. Each creature reacts differently to your presence, and you'll witness various interactions. The game is semi-realistic in how animals act. Predators will hunt prey, and eat their kills.
Often you’ll be required to photograph specific animals exhibiting certain behaviors. Seeking animals and setting up shots is part of the fun. Get too close, and you’ll face charging animals. An on-screen meter tracks how much you’ve disturbed nature; disturbing creatures too frequently will cause the mission to fail. Fortunately, taking successful photographs will raise the meter back up.
The African savannah is full of lions, elephants, wildebeest and more dangerous creatures. As a photojournalist, it's up to you to to snap pictures of the fantastic animals in their native environment for a fabulous magazine article. Two wildlife experts stay on the radio, chatting at you about what you're seeing and letting you know what pictures you need to take - from piles of elephant poop to charging lions!
Wild Earth: African Safari is a very cool game for a bunch of reasons. Not only is it totally non-violent, you get to learn about what the animals in Africa are up to and you can take some awesome pictures. It's a lot of fun and easy enough for anyone to play.
You point the Wii Remote to take pictures and you need a certain amount of objective pictures to complete the assignment. After you complete the assignment you can read the article and learn something.
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Wild Earth African Safari Wii -Trailer
Controls and Graphics
The controls take some getting used to. Movement is handled with the Nunchuk, while turning and camera controls are executed by pointing the Wii Remote. The camera can be zoomed in or out easily, and snapping a picture is done with a quick button press.
Creatures and environments look good at a glance, but they don’t hold up quite as well to closer inspection. Essentially, the graphics either seem a tad dated or the creature models behave a little strangely when you zoom in close. However, the game’s target audience will likely care little, since the animals do sound and act as they would in the wild, and it’s convincing enough.
Additional Features
Unlockable mini-games offer short distractions for younger players, but the controls are often problematic. A co-op multiplayer mode lets you work together with a friend on your photo assignments, but the main fun is through the solo missions themselves.
Parents should appreciate knowing their kids will be soaking in some good information from playing. Kids will love the gross-out fun of photographing large mounds of elephant poop and watching one giraffe chew on another’s posterior.
Potential Issues
Wild Earth offers a fascinating interactive romp through nature, but there are a few issues players will have to deal with on their adventures. Progressing from one grouping of photo assignments to the next during a mission requires you to be at a specific place to trigger the event. If you happen to miss the sweet spot, it’s easy to end up wandering around for a lengthy time unsure of where to go next or what to do to move forward.
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That said, there’s a little too much hand-holding in terms of the linear nature of each mission. You’re basically stuck moving from one area to the next to snap pictures based on prompts from the narrators.
Another problem occurs when the screen gets too clogged up with information. For example, at one point the bars of dialogue text cut off the lower third of the screen, the upper right chunk was primarily obscured by a recently snapped picture, and the upper left portion was blocked by an extremely long list of secondary photo objectives.
Ratings Breakdown
Here's a breakdown of the game's ratings:
| Category | Rating | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Graphics | 3.4 | Lots of animals to photograph and interesting environments to explore, but the graphics are a little disappointing when you get a close look at things. |
| Control | 3.5 | The main game controls work well, but the quite a few of the mini-games are nearly broken by poor control implementation. |
| Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting | 4.4 | Superb African drumming and other music provided by Talking Drum Records. Animal sound effects are realistic. |
| Play Value | 3.7 | There’s a lot to explore. |
| Overall Rating | 3.7 - Good |
Gameplay in Wild Earth African Safari involves taking pictures of animals in their natural habitats.
For an all ages title that clearly caters to younger players, Wild Earth: African Safari is substantially entertaining on the Wii. Taking pictures of anything you like in any way you choose is excellent. Just be sure not to step in any elephant droppings.
Wild Earth: African Safari is worth the cost and a great game for kids that are interested in learning about animals, Africa, conservation and some about a possible career path.
