Animal Kingdom: Wildlife Expedition
By Chad Sapieha,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Educational safari game has a strong conservation theme.
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Animal Kingdom: Wildlife Expedition
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What’s It About?
Unlike many animal-themed games, which have players capturing animals and putting them in zoos or keeping them as pets, ANIMAL KINGDOM: WILDLIFE EXPEDITION sees players taking photographs of creatures in their natural habitats on an island home to some of our planet’s most exotic and exciting species. Each day they set out to snap pictures of animals in different locations and engage in various activities, filing the best shots with a red-nosed editor back home, who judges the quality each image. Players can also read about each species’ traits in an animal file stuffed with interesting beast facts and find odd items that make their job easier, such as animal suits that allow them to blend in with the herd and get closer to their subjects.
Is It Any Good?
There’s not much to Animal Kingdom: Wildlife Expedition, but what’s here ought to prove plenty of fun for animal-loving kids. The animals animate and behave fairly realistically, and it’s fun to earn their trust by inching a bit closer each day. Plus, the fun facts in the animal file are just the right length to relate a couple of bits of information you didn’t know about impalas and elephants without bogging down the action.
What you won’t get from the game is a lot of variation in play. Kids end up doing the much the same thing day after day, with the only excitement coming in the form of newly discovered animals and the occasional fresh item, like a squall machine that can change the weather to draw out particular kinds of animals. Thankfully, its bargain price of $29.99 means we can still give parents a green light to check out this fun and educational Wii game.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the difference between observing animals in their natural habitats and capturing them for people to see in a zoo. How do you think captivity affects the animals? Do you think it is any less disruptive to view them in tour buses in the wild or in large, wilderness-like enclosures?
Families can also discuss the game’s animal files feature. Did it contain interesting information that you didn’t know prior to playing? Do you think this is an effective way to learn about animals? What might you learn from seeing an animal in person that you can’t in a game?
Game Details
- Platform: Nintendo Wii
- Available online?: Not available online
- Publisher: Natsume
- Release date: September 30, 2009
- Genre: Edutainment
- ESRB rating: E for Mild Violence
- Last updated: August 31, 2016
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