Do you like peaches? I love them. Got a few for sale, see, and was wondering what you could offer me in exchange. An apple, you say? I was thinking more along the lines of a pear. A pear and a rug? You have a deal! Now, let me tell you a little secret: I also have a fantastic game console to sell. Want it? Make me an offer! I’ve also got a selection of ornaments that would look great in your house.

You’d be excused for thinking that I’ve gone a little bit Camden Market on you, but I promise you I’m completely sane and haven’t got a fine selection of apples and pears for you to peruse. No – I’ve been playing Animal Crossing, Nintendo having finally seen fit to release it in Europe after finally bowing to pressure and listening to popular demand.

What is Animal Crossing? Well… um… it’s kind of like… um… a village simulator of sorts. The game kicks off with you viewing the action from a first-person perspective on a train. Opposite you is a talking dog that asks you a series of questions, the answers of which determine your name, sex and home village name. From there you are given your modest little shack to live in by the town mayor and let off the leash.

Early wanderings are cleverly orientated to introduce you to the fundamentals of the game. Finding yourself a little strapped for cash, you are introduced to Tom Nook, the local racoon shopkeeper (no sign of Cyril Sneer sadly). He arranges for you to complete a set number of tasks, ranging from wandering around your new home town meeting the inhabitants to delivering items and scribbling letters to townsfolk.

By doing so, you’ll get to grips with the very core of the game. Meeting your wacky neighbours is an amusing experience, with each of them being a type of animal and having their own mini personality. Interacting with each of your new friends brings up a host of opportunities to swap and buy new furniture for your house, whilst also giving you some menial tasks such as returning a borrowed item to another villager. As a result, you’ll start stacking up a range of items such as beds, carpets, tables and chairs for your home, and tailoring it to a certain theme by collecting items of the same set is really very compulsive.

The overall aim of the game is to obtain and sell items in order to pay off your mortgage, at which point you can then extend your house. It all sounds massively simple and to be completely honest it is, but the very nature of the game is addictive and will keep you collecting, selling and chatting for months. The fact that the game uses the GameCube clock to run the village in pseudo real-time means that you can save the game, turn off the console and return later in the day to find a new villager, or a new letter in your letterbox. Amusingly, resetting the game without saving leaves you to the wrath of a massively angry mole, who will threaten to delete your save data if you continue to do such sneaky antics.

Then there’s the option to send gifts to your friends. By taking an item to Tom Nook’s store he will take it and give you a code by return, which you can then send to your friend who can redeem it in their local branch of Nook’s. This becomes particularly useful if you want a village with a plethora of fruit options, as initially you’ll just have the one type. Burying a piece of fruit and letting it grow will give you a tree of the same type, meaning that compulsive fruit swapping will give you a well-stocked village quite quickly.

Then there are the collectable items that you can donate to the museums. Getting yourself a fishing rod and a bug net will allow you to go hunting, with a huge host of fish and insects for you to snag. You can also gain profit from doing this, as Nook’s accept anything that you can get your grubby paws on for cash. It all adds up to being heckishly addictive, and more than likely you’ll want to complete each section of the museum before your time in town comes to an end.

Quite when that will be is really entirely down to the individual. There’s so much to explore and discover that the game will surprise all year round. From the way snow falls during the winter months to certain characters turning up on certain days and times, there are plenty of unique schedules and events to unearth. The game looks and sounds simple enough, yet underneath it has a fiercely addictive ‘collect and improve’ mechanic that’ll keep you wandering about happily for ages. Hopefully by the time the next incarnation of Animal Crossing comes around, Nintendo will give us the chance to find this out for ourselves without the 2-year delay.