This is the first Animal Crossing where my wife and I will share a town. We named it McNulty, in honour of hapless Jimmy McNulty, one of the main characters in The Wire. (Which, incidentally, is the best TV show of all time, no arguments.)

She moved in first, did all the Nook jobs and poked around. Then I started, did the same jobs again, then popped over to the city. It’s nice to see the animals milling around the main square. We saw some old friends like Rasher, Dotty and Wart Jr. Gracie’s is terribly expensive, but after some fishing I managed to buy my wife and excellent hat.

Anyway, it’s rather like the upgrade from the Gamecube version to the DS version. At first it appears very similar indeed, but has a host of small changes that only people who played wild World to death will notice. Outside the obvious addition of the city, there are styles of housing, new items, more context-sensitive animal chat, a new event day this weekend, you can now arrange visits to animal houses, etc.

It’s quite a clever upgrade, really. It feels similar enough to be comforting, but with enough little new things sprinkled about to add a feeling of excitement. And, on Nintendo’s side, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper and easier than developing a new game.

One for newbies and hardcore fans, then. The vast mass of more casual Wild World players, or those that played it for a while then got tired, won’t find much here for them, I don’t think.