You pick up the game pad, select your desired animal (such as a cute little Pomeranian dog), start off in Shibuya Station near the train tracks, drinking water and marking your territory by pissing on some red flags. Then you savagely attack and devour several bunny rabbits, chickens and possibly cats before finding a horned up soul-mate and 'boinking' in some hay. Then you have a whole conga-line of cute little puppies with which to start all over again but in new territory. Watch them eat, grow, shag and eventually get mauled to death by an Elephant that they foolishly thought they could bite the arse off before it trampled them all to death in a fit of bleeding-cheeked anger. Why is all this so strangely addictive, like cuddly savage crack!?
Tokyo Jungle is like a hyper-stylised and fast playing version of games like The Sims, where you get to watch a family that you create evolve and change over time based on your decisions and gameplay. The game also keeps the interest up by randomly generating events in different areas of Tokyo for you to explore and partake in; as well as challenges to complete as you try to survive for the longest time possible. Built in are several different species of animal to unlock, and different accessories to find, collect, and enhance your animal's stats in a pseudo-RPG dressing up feature. There is also a vague "story mode" to collect and unlock as well as history and background material to find... hell, the game even supports an offline local co-op mode where you and a friend can join each other in the race for survival and supremacy!
As you can see it's not short on content, despite the fact that the game can last anywhere from ten minutes to several hours depending on how much time you want to invest in the longevity of whichever species you've chosen to play as. It may not be the most deep and meaningful, or polished graphically/aurally, game in the world... but it is certainly one of the most unique. In an industry dominated by shooting people in the face for hours on end and watching cut-scene after cut-scene where failed movie actors 'emote' as hard as they can through clumsy scripts, it's refreshing to pick up a controller, select a Sabre Toothed Tiger and maul some other animals for half an hour.
Addictiveness and supreme amounts of fun mean that Toyko Jungle is easily one of the highlights for 2012 and an easy pick for my top five this year.
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