Product Reviews

Tired of being invaded by aliens? Sick of plasma lasers? Want to use your graphics card for more gentle pursuits? Well, if a) you've only ever seen giraffes at the zoo and b) you're remotely bothered by this, we have may have just what you're looking for. Wild Earth Africa is a safari on your PC, only quite a bit cheaper and without the travelling and mosquitoes. If it doesn't appeal to you in real life, you're not going to like this either. But it's an intriguing concept.

The storyline isn't complicated. You're an inexperienced wildlife photographer charged with providing pictures for a series of magazine articles on African wildlife. You're accompanied by two colleagues: one a journalist, one a guide - a professor, apparently. They'll be ever present as you wander unprotected through the savannah. They'll guide you through the controls, offer sage guidance on the greeting rituals of elephants and help you load up your weapon.

Well, we say weapon. In fact, it's just a camera, as this is strictly a non-violent affair. You can zoom in and out, take pictures and, er, generally look around a bit. The voiceover will guide you through the mission objectives, and a list of the shots you need to take will appear in the

ADVERTISEMENT

top left. These consist of directives like "Elephant flapping ears", "Scared Wildebeest" or "Cheetah doing the ironing" (maybe) and, once you've filled your quota, you can move on to the next mission - there are eight in total. In between lining up your shots, there's some genuinely interesting educational stuff, and you can wander around freely if you feel like it - you're penned in occasionally by rivers or rocks, but it otherwise proves quite expansive.

There's a good range of animals (16 different species) to snap at, from the well known to the slightly more obscure. Most are well animated, behave in a believable way and, at times, it's satisfyingly realistic. Then a crocodile will appear through a rock and lumber unconvincingly towards you. It isn't impressive or threatening (even the lions ignore you) and you're left feeling that there's little thrill-seeking excitement to be gained. You do need to watch the "environmental impact" gauge, though, which prevents you getting too close to animals. Enough said.

But Wild Africa does make a decent fist at conveying a bit of spectacle occasionally. You get to go in a jeep and a helicopter, and there's even a herd of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain. There's the odd bit of circle-of-life creature munching (as opposed to the singing-and-dancing kind), and some moments of actual challenge involved. But it's mostly in the details.

Over-12s aren't likely to be impressed, but younger children may take to it. Nothing too appalling will happen if you sit them in front of this, and you might even get them to shut up for a couple of hours. At the end of each mission, you'll get a copy of the magazine article with all your "photos" in, as well as a copy of them all saved in your My Pictures folder. Nice. And, secretly we quite like it.