Gameloft introduces us to a “city building” game but with some familiar faces. I have spent countless hours on the likes of Farmville, Cityville and more recently Castleville, but these characterless games burn out after a while, and I think it’s partially due to the lack of attachment to the people in your villes.
I was glad to have a game with similar game play but with characters that I know and love. I love the Ice Age movies. In fact I can’t think of any of these animated movies that I have disliked. The likes of Dreamworks and Pixar have mastered the art of creating characters that nuzzle their way into our hearts and curl up for permanent residence.
Scrat. You wish so much that the little guy would get his acorn, but you still laugh when it all goes horribly wrong and your heart melts when you see his crestfallen face at the end of his fruitless efforts.
Why do you want to create an Ice Age Village? Well there have been quakes and whatnot so we need a safe place for all the animals to live. Our job now involves creating habitats and completing quests to expand the village.
Your quests come from some familiar faces. Manny, Diago and Sid all feature along with some newer additions. You build up families of sloths, mammoths, aardvarks, dung beetles, armadillos, leopards, piranha, the list goes on and on. Building up families is done by buying 2 adults and then using the nursery to hatch eggs. Each family has 2 adults and 2 young and that’s a complete family, and you can zoom in to see the whole family sitting or playing about on their little bit of habitat in your village.
Collecting money is done via the habitats once a set time has passed. You then have to feed the animals in your habitat before they can start generating money again. You can use this money to buy more animals, or perhaps to buy some recreational areas for your village like an ice diving pool, or some swings and a see-saw. There are mini-games for some added fun which can also award coins.
You can view your collections easily via the menu that can help decide what to buy next. Completing collection sets awards bonuses such as coins, acorns and other items or animals.
Almost every action you perform will award some XP and of course you can level up once you have enough, which can unlock more items/animals from the shop. Levelling up can also trigger new quests.
Of course just like the other “-ville” games there are some items you just can’t get with coins. Acorns are used to buy premium items and you can get more acorns by handing over your real money. You will acquire the odd one or two while playing but they never build up enough through general gameplay to get anything decent. I was lucky enough to get £5 worth of acorns, excited as I was, those acorns disappeared fast and it wasn’t long before I was struggling to complete certain quests.
The social side of the game is slightly lacking. You can connect with people using Gameloft Live or Facebook and visit the villages of your friends. Not many of my friends play these types of games so completing the quests which require neighbours was impossible for me. Cityville Hometown had a feature of suggesting random people to help combat this issue which would be ideal for Ice Age Village.
All in all it’s a lovely little game and the animations of the animals are really nice to watch. It’s hard to progress without acorns and friends, but if you’ve got money to pour into this game you can skip neighbour related quests.
Its the little details that make this much more adorable than those Zynga creations.
7 frozen but fantastic fellows out of 10