Alex Navarro Assistant Editor	Currently Playing: More Animal Crossing than I'd care to admit to anyone Currently Anticipating: ESPN NFL Football (Xbox), Madden NFL 2004 (PS2), Half-Life 2 (PC), A second story to my Animal Crossing house

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Just when I thought I'd gotten back on the wagon, just when I thought that I had managed to get my life back into some sort of order, just when I thought that one insidious game no longer held the deed to my very soul--disaster. I simply couldn't hold back anymore. I thought I'd managed to make Tom Nook's cheerful voice leave my head once and for all, and yet there he is again, whispering in my ear that I need to own a lunar rover. I thought perhaps my weekends spent in my darkened bedroom, planted firmly in my comfy leather office chair, doing nothing but fishing and catching bugs for hours on end were over. And yet there I was this past weekend, frustrated that I couldn't find the one breed of beetle that I haven't donated to the museum, and stoked to the point of jumping up and down when I finally caught an arapaima. Once again, gentle readers, my life has been taken from me--my very existence is owned by a village full of cute, cuddly animals that keep leaving their video tapes at other people's houses and are really, really into feng shui. God help me, I'm playing Animal Crossing again.

The things you own end up owning you.

Before I launch into a description of the pit of social detritus that my life has plunged into in the past couple of weeks, let me give you a brief history of my experiences with Animal Crossing. I first saw the game when our own senior editor Jeff Gerstmann bought his copy shortly after the game's release. At first it seemed innocent enough--silly looking animal townsfolk, a store where you could buy and sell stuff, home decoration, letter writing, and so on. Jeff seemed pretty into it, but nothing terribly obsessive. However, more and more I'd find myself arriving at his house, only to find him fishing or writing lengthy letters to his best animal friends. This past New Year's Eve, instead of popping open champagne at midnight, we sat in his bedroom for a good 20 minutes, watching the fireworks display in his fictional city. Immediately after that, I decided I'd seen enough and went and rented the game to try it out for myself.

Getting me to go down to a video store and actually rent a game is a fairly impressive feat in itself. I had not rented a game previous to this since the Nintendo 64 days (and even then, the last one I rented was Banjo Kazooie.) So I rent me up a copy of Animal Crossing, get home, and immediately create a lovely burg by the name of Crackton. Upon entering the town, I was less than enthusiastic, as within five minutes of my arrival, I was already like 19,000 bells in debt to the esteemed Mr. Nook, and my only close neighbor was Chief, a rather unpleasant fox who for some reason really liked to call me "Honey." However, after a day of playing, things quickly picked up. I found myself equipped with a shovel for finding buried treasure and fossils, I had met all the rest of my neighbors (nearly all of whom were significantly friendlier than Chief), and I had already paid off the bulk of my debt. Of course, by the time I actually made the first renovation of my house, I had to return the game to the video store.

I hate museums, and yet half the reason I play this game is to fill up my museum with crazy junk!

Once the game was out of my possession, I initially duped myself into thinking I'd be fine without it. But then, ever so slightly, the game began to creep back into my head. I'd be working on some writing and the thought that maybe I should send a letter to my homeboy Sven the goat would suddenly appear. Or perhaps I'd be, I don't know, laying on my floor thinking about sandwiches or something, and ever so sneakily, the thought that I could be fishing right then for a large trout to donate to Blathers the owl at the local museum would traipse its way into my head. I rented it a few more times, each time getting more and more obsessively into it. Finally, I cracked and made my way to the closest available games retailer and plopped down my 50 bucks for a copy of Animal Crossing, and so began my descent into madness.

For about the first couple of weeks, I had a one-to-two-hours-a-day Animal Crossing habit. Sure, I was into it, but I wasn't addicted. I could quit anytime I wanted--or so I assumed. One to two hours turned into three to four, four to five, and eventually the bulk of my evenings. Finally, when the workload began to pick up around the time of E3, I began to shy away from Animal Crossing. It didn't take an intervention, or some sort of massive fall from grace--I just didn't have time to play anymore. So I left the game alone, focusing more on my work, and there it sat for weeks on end.

This guy is a total jerk, and yet I'll still probably run his errands for him! This game has turned me into a spineless weakling!

At this point, I'm just inches away from adding a second story to my house, I've tracked down nearly every breed of animal and fossil to donate to the museum (save for the pieces that you can only find on the GBA-required island--sadly, I don't own a GBA at the moment), and I've found more crazy stuff for my house than I ever thought possible. And while all this is going on, friends are being ignored, meals are being skipped, and my ability to play most any other game has been all but eliminated. As of right now, my only friends are adorable little talking animals with novelty-sized heads that continue to assign me random delivery tasks and a wishing well that tells me where money is hidden in trees. The only food I need is a freaking pear, which just can't be found inside my town, except through rather sneaky means. And as for other games, why play other games when you can just go into your house and play Donkey Kong for hours on end? Make no mistake about it, Animal Crossing is a drug--a drug created by Shigeru Miyamoto and distributed to America's gaming population by seemingly innocent retailers. I have sunk deep once again into my Animal Crossing addiction, barely able to conceive the very notion that a world exists beyond my beloved Crackton. The sick reality is that I can never leave this game, because it just won't let me. Animal Crossing is just a title. The reality is much, much worse.