National Geographic Panda
Score: 91% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: BANDAI NAMCO Games America, Inc. Developer: BANDAI NAMCO Games America, Inc. Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1 Genre: Simulation/ Edutainment
Graphics & Sound: It seems like everyone is releasing their own videogames lately, so I guess it is natural for National Geographic to join them. Their first venture into the gaming industry, National Geographic Panda, is a pretty good one. The pandas in National Geographic Panda are totally adorable. You can tell that the programmers studied real pandas to mimic their movements and actions so well. Even the little things like rolling over or scratching an ear look so real. The backgrounds are also wonderfully beautiful. No matter how much you move the camera around, it is still fluid. You can't always get the angle you want easily, but you won't make it skip a beat trying. They even implemented things like the sunrise and sunset. The sky at those times is just beautiful! There are several choices that you can buy to upgrade the interior of your panda's house. Anytime you start to get bored with the way things look, you can just change everything around easily. Not only are the pandas adorable, but they also make the cutest little noises. They are relatively quiet creatures, but they do make little grunts and giggles, especially when you feed or bathe them. The background music is very relaxing to listen to. You can play for hours and never get bored of the music.
Gameplay: National Geographic Panda is very easy to play. The only thing you have to do is play with and take care of your panda. They are naturally curious creatures and enjoy playing. Your panda will try to do tricks like rolling over on their own. You can help them learn, though, by using the touch screen and moving them in the way that they need to go for the trick. As time goes by, you get more and more playground equipment. Pandas love this equipment. They will investigate it pretty quickly. Once again, you will need to help them from time to time. Since you can only have one piece of equipment out at a time, make sure to swap it out frequently so your panda gets to play on everything. You will also need to feed and bathe your panda. There are quite a few different foods that they will love in the shop for you to buy. You can go to the shop at anytime, but certain days they have sales, so you might want to build up your stock more on those days. You can also buy the extra sets for your house, clothing, and upgrade your bath at the shop. It is pretty easy to tell when your panda needs a bath. They'll start to look very dirty and eventually almost all the white will be grey. Unlike my dogs though, the pandas thoroughly enjoys bath time! You don't have to worry about putting them to sleep or making sure that they are in the house when they want to sleep; luckily, pandas really don't care where they sleep. Especially when they're young, they will take frequent naps. But have no fear; they will wake up ready to play pretty quickly. You won't spend 10 minutes just waiting on them to wake up.
Difficulty: There is one major thing that made National Geographic Panda difficult to play. Each day, you are given a $300 per panda allowance. When you get a new panda, you will get a $300 increase the next day. When they say day, that means a physical day. If you don't turn your DS on each day, you don't get that allowance. You can't just skip a few days of playing to get a huge batch of money at the end. So, the big problem with this is that $300 only gets you a little bit of food. Unless I let my panda go hungry and thirsty a lot, I could only play the game about an hour or two a day. Personally, I solved this money crisis by time warping. It made the game much better once I could play for hours straight without starving any poor pandas. One other thing that freaked me out for a short period of time was losing a panda. I swore my first panda completely disappeared the day I got the second one. It turns out that the pandas don't necessarily stay where you left them when you ended the game. This means that you could have one panda in each location when you start up your game. All you have to do is move locations, though, and any that are with you will move to the new one with you. So don't freak out if you think you lost a panda. They're just playing hide and seek with you.
Game Mechanics: National Geographic Panda is very easy to play. You use the touch screen for almost everything. The D-pad and buttons will only move the camera. The (L) and (R) buttons will change the camera angles. The overhead view is great for seeing where all of your pandas are. When you want to play with a specific panda, then you'll need to be in touch mode. You can simply touch the screen to switch to it though. You don't have to use the shoulder buttons for it. You'll then see icons to do everything you want to on the screen. To find any of your inventory, including clothing and food for the pandas, simply tap the Items icon on the screen. To feed a panda, just tap on the food you want to give it and hold it in front of them. They will quickly take whatever you have for them if they're hungry or thirsty. You can give them toys to play with the same way. If the panda isn't near you, you can always tap the Call icon to call out to them. When you want to take your panda to a different location, just tap on the Home icon and choose Go Out. Any location that you have unlocked will be available to you. This is also where you choose to go to the bath that your panda loves so much. When I heard National Geographic Panda was being released, I wanted to play it. I am so glad that it was better than I even hoped it would be. It is a really cute game, but is also educational. Each day, you'll get new facts about real live pandas. It is the best way I've seen lately to play and learn at the same time. It is easy enough for kids to play, but still fun for adults. I highly recommend that you go get National Geographic Panda today.
-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl
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