System Requirements Windows 98/Me/2000/XP 800MHz CPU 256MB RAM 64MB 3D graphics 300MB HDD Space Rated E Every girl wants to be a veterinarian right? The sequel to a very girly game is here. Instead of healing your common pets, you get to care for wild African animals. Did I mention that you can hire a cute guy to be your helper? With all of the girly stuff aside, this game is pretty fun and reminds me a lot of The Sims.

Story

If you play through the scenarios, the basic storyline is that you’re given a great opportunity to work in Africa. You have a limited amount of start up money, so I recommend buying instruments with it to aid in diagnosing problems. You’ll start off healing meerkats, and then aardvarks, and zebras; later on you’ll work your way up to leopards, lions, and finally elephants. You’ll start getting different animals after you build enclosures for them. You can upgrade and accessorize animal pens, your hospital, and your house. You can read books with details about each species you plan on treating. Once you have read all five per species, you’ll be awarded a certificate.

Game Play

This game is similar to The Sims in many ways (Though not nearly as detailed). Not only are you caring for animals, but you also have to take care of your needs as well. Eating maintains your energy level and your fitness level increases with resting or sleeping. You have to purchase instruments and animal feed. You are also provided with a handy cell phone/PDA device that lets you know if animals are really hungry, if you’re low on food, if an animal is being picked up, or if one needs a follow up examination that day. When animals come in for a check up you can look them over using your various instruments. As you collect clues, you can make a better diagnosis. You’re instruments and diagnoses’ are pre-selected. It’s just a process of elimination. Although it may seem pretty easy, but there are some challenging ones that you need a specific instrument to diagnose properly. There are three levels of difficulty (easy, medium, and hard) as well as two game modes. You can either play Scenario or Free Play mode.

Hired Help

You can hire a cute guy named John to be your assistant for $100 a day. He can be helpful, but he’s mostly useless. You can assign him a specific chore to do (cleaning, petting, playing, or feeding) or assign him to a particular animal pen. You can also spend money to train him so he’ll be more comfortable with the more exotic animals. You have to baby-sit him quite a bit, because most of the time he’ll either eat or sleep.

Graphics

The graphics are decent in this game. The animal models look good and the interface is really easy to use. You can add more detail to your home/hospital by buying accessories to make your “world” prettier.

Sound

The background music is peppy in this game but it repeats often. The voice acting is better than the original but it’s still not perfect. They have a male, a female, and a boy’s voice, which sound good. What confused me is that the helper John (who is a grown man) has the little boy’s voice.

Appropriateness

This game is pretty clean and I recommend it for girls of all ages. I didn’t notice any graphic pictures in the books this time.

Final Thoughts

This is a fun game, but it’s a lot of babysitting. I think anyone who likes The Sims would enjoy this title too. I’m sure many girls will love it. It does have some rough edges and it did crash on me many times.