The second game I was really looking forward to (excuse me, "to which I was looking forward") shipped this week, Animal Crossing: Wild World. I didn't actually play it much at E3 or read much about it, but I loved the original GameCube game, loved it right to death. I assumed that the DS version would expand on it in lots of fun ways, like bigger towns and more things to do, as well as being able to play the game with friends. So far it's a bit of a disappointment: looks like it's pretty much the same game with the online play patched in. It such a weird mix of insanely cool technology and base tedium it makes me dizzy. Just now I connected to a guy's DS in Australia, on the other side of the world—and there was nothing to do but say hi, walk around, then leave. There's almost nothing you can do to make your town different from everyone else's, to make it a place people might want to visit. I'm still having fun doing all the same things I already did in the GameCube game, but it seems like there was a huge opportunity missed here. On the other hand, it does show that we can look forward to some really, really amazing online DS games.