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Zoo Vet: Endangered Animals

Score: 42%
ESRB: Everyone 10+
Publisher: Legacy Interactive
Developer: Legacy Interactive
Media: CD/1
Players: 1
Genre: Simulation/ Edutainment

Graphics & Sound:

Zoo Vet: Endangered Animals lets you play as a veterinarian who works on engangered animals. It can't be called anything but an educational game, with less emphasis on the "game" part. I wouldn't call it a horrible experience, but it's not what I would call fun either.

The surgery and treatment sections of the game are the best looking sections of the game. Unfortunately, this isn't saying much. You're given fairly static pictures of the various animals you're working on. They breathe and make other random movements, but there is usually only motion in one section of the body. They may have some secondary movement, but they don't really react to your actions. The care sections of the game take a nose dive from there. It's hard to tell what most of the blocky items in the habitats are. Clipping, floating animals, horrible excuses for textures, blocky terrain: you name the graphics problem, you'll be able to find it here. To top it off, scrolling the camera through the terrain is achingly slow.

Fonts are hard to read in the information sections. This being an educational type of game, it shouldn't punish your eyes in the reading sections like this. People in the game look stiff and unnatural. Some animals are a bit more cartoonish looking than others, but some do look rather natural.

Staff are all voiced by actors and are very friendly and upbeat. "That's alright, I know you didn't mean to" is one thing the staff will say to you when you make a mistake. They just hope you try a little harder when you're about to kill the zoo's prized endangered Panda Bear. I know this is supposed to be a light game for kids, but the casual attitude here is scarier than anything else. Other than that, there is some light music with a generic jungle theme, and a few growls and noises that come from the animals. None of it strives for realism.


Gameplay:

Zoo Vet: Endangered Animals's title says it all, as it puts you in the role of a veterinarian charged with the care of an array of endangered animals. You can choose to perform treatments, which is the more interactive portion of the game, or just provide basic care.

Treatment sections of the game have you doing light medical procedures on animals. You have a fairly large selection of medical instruments at your disposal, so it can be difficult to figure out what you're supposed to do on the harder difficulty levels. Instruments usually have a quick animated sequence associated with them, but once again, nothing looks too real. It is good to see that they didn't shy away from certain medical procedures because they're "icky," though. You'll be putting thermometers in the rear ends of many different exotic animals, taking blood tests, and doing fecal tests: really experiencing the glamorous side of vet life. That's about all the credit I can give the game for striving for realism, though.

As mentioned, the dialogue is pretty inane, but some of the pre-treatment talks are kind of funny. Coupling that with the rubbery looking people in the game doesn't help though. The head vet will follow up with you after every procedure and tell you what you did right or wrong, or if you did particularly badly, he'll stop you in mid procedure.

The care portions of the game are less intense, if you can really say that for this game. You're just given a group of animals, and if one needs something, an icon will pop up over its head. If the animal needs to be fed, you'll be asked what type of food you should feed it. You won't be given any help, but there's nothing particularly obscure about the questions. Pandas eat bamboo, don't feed meat to an herbivore, etc. Some of the medical related questions here are probably going to be harder for the younger crowd. If you don't know the answer beforehand, however, this just seems like more of a test than an educational game.

You are rewarded for progress with various pictures and videos. The videos of wild animals are pretty short and don't come with explanations of any kind. You could find better material on Youtube.com, really. You're also given extra puzzles and quizzes, if you just can't get enough.

Fun fact of the day: Grizzly Bears, Pandas, and Tigers love to hang out together. No, Zoo Vet doesn't come out and say this, but it does have enclosures set up like this. You can still learn from this game, though I'm not sure about the accuracy of all the medical procedures used. Still, it doesn't try to be a medical drama like Trauma Center, so I have to hold it to a slightly higher educational standard. This game should probably only be used as a stepping-off point for further learning, rather than an educational tool in itself.


Difficulty:

3 different difficulty levels are selectable in Zoo Vet: Endangered Animals, but it seems you're intended to start at beginner and then work your way up. On hard difficulty, you're given a basic tutorial and then that's it. You really don't have any resources to rely on in order to find out how to complete each case. On Easy, you are basically walked through every procedure. You can still mess up, but you won't really fail unless you just ignore instructions and start sticking medical instruments in random places. Every level of difficulty gives you the chance to redo treatment procedures. Once again, this isn't a vet training sim by any means.

Much of what makes the game difficult in general is a lack of direction. I expected some kind of guide or set of hints before I went into treatment sequences, but they were non-existent. You can view some information on animals, and get a general guide to what your medical instruments do, but no guidance as to when to use them (not counting the walkthrough in Easy mode.) Instead, the zoo staff are content to watch you poke and prod their animals needlessly like someone kicking the tires on a used car.


Game Mechanics:

Zoo Vet: Endangered Animals has a point-and-click interface, but it isn't exactly user-friendly. The game relies on mousing over areas and checking the text box that pops up in order to do anything. A steady hand doesn't count for much, you just move until you see the right word highlighted. Only pixels separate different areas - you can't tell the difference "wound" and "blood vessel" just by looking, but it will cost you points if you use the correct instrument on the wrong area.

The interface seems a bit cluttered during treatment sections, and you have to scroll through a text box on the right to read important messages. It's not obvious though, so you may miss it if you're playing for the first time. Icons all require a mouse-over to tell what they do. It wouldn't have hurt to have a few static text descriptions below some items. When you get past those annoyances, the game is fairly straightforward, and you can always find a new task when you want to.

Zoo Vet: Endangered Animals is a game that helps give educational software the bad rap that it has. As a game, it's not much fun. It's a linear point-and-click game that looks pretty horrible. It may be a nice game for a young kid interested in being a veterinarian, but only if it's treated like less of a game and more of a reading experience.


-Fights with Fire, GameVortex Communications
AKA Christin Deville

Minimum System Requirements:



Windows 98/ME/2000/XP or Windows Vista, 600 MHz Intel Pentium II processor w/ a current hardware accelerated 3D graphics card, 128 MB or more available RAM, Windows- compatible sound card, DirectX 8.1 or greater, QuickTime 6.0 or higher
 

Test System:



Windows XP, 3.20 GHz Intel Pentium 4, 1 GB Ram, RADEON X850, Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS

Microsoft Xbox 360 Soldier of Fortune: Payback Sony PlayStation 3 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

 
Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated