If there’s one thing that the Nintendo DS was short on, it was games where zoo animals escape from their cages and run amok. Thank god for Zoo Keeper. Without it we wouldn’t have this original concept on the Nintendo DS. While the premise is good, the entire game isn’t as original as it’s concept; chances are you’ve played Bejeweled, and if so, then you’ve basically played this game. That’s not to say that Zoo Keeper is a bad game, quite the contrary; it’s actually quite good, addictive even. Plus, it uses the DS’ unique functions
"as good as it is, it’s no where near worth the $40 price tag that comes attached to it"
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more than most other games. But as good as it is, it’s no where near worth the $40 price tag that comes attached to it, especially since you can pretty much play the game for free on the internet.
When you get right down to it, Zoo Keeper is Bejeweled. All you have to do is change the shapes from precious stones to multicolored animal hieroglyphics and you’re set. The object, like most puzzle games is to clear pieces off the board to gain points. To clear the pieces, you want to move them. Touch a piece on the screen, touch a piece next to it (either vertically or horizontally) and they’ll switch places. If it creates a line with two or more pieces of the same type, they disappear, if not, the pieces move back into their previous place. The more pieces you clear, the more points you get. Clear enough pieces before the timer runs out, and you’ll move on to the next round. Sometimes, you’ll clear pieces, and more will drop in to place to be cleared, creating a combo, but combo creation can be a very random thing.
Combo creation is so random, it’s actually kind of frustrating. Getting big chains of combos is less about skill, and more about the how the pieces fall, notably the ones you can’t see. Sure, skilled players will be able to actually plan limited chains of combos after playing this game for a while, but as it is there aren’t enough pieces displayed to do that effectively. It’s nice to have combos happen, but you never really feel like you meant to do it. It would have made more sense if you could see what pieces were on their way by using the top screen, instead of displaying a useless and poorly drawn animation of an animal (it’s seriously like three frames of animation), and a bar to display your stats. Sure, the animation is funny when the type of pieces you clear match up with that animal, but other than the stat bar the screen is totally useless.
Sometimes the player will flat out run out of moves. The board will then clear, and reset. The player will also be awarded "bonus points." It’s really irritating to run out of moves. They’re hard enough to find already, but when
"Combo creation is so random, it’s actually kind of frustrating"
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there’s only one on the entire board, it’s kind of a pain in the ass, especially when you’re timed. It also makes some of the later stages nearly impossible, as well as a lot of the challenges. This makes progress past around stage 14 nearly impossible. They try to fix this by adding a "Clue" power up, which shows the player where moves are. You start with two, and get one for every 100,000 points, but there aren’t enough to help, and it’s actually a terrible solution. Why not just use a GameShark? I attribute this problem to the random placement of pieces, and while irritating, it’s definitely a clever and functional way to cover up a design flaw.
There are a couple of modes to keep the player interested in this title, though they all suffer from the same problems. Aside from the normal "Story" mode, which has you, the Zoo Keeper, "capturing" a certain amount of animals each stage before time runs out, there is a Challenge mode. The Challenge mode could have been so much better if it weren’t for the randomness of the pieces, or if they showed you how to actually score points. The objectives are clever, but ultimately they aren’t feasible. I’m not really sure how the game expects you to get high scores in this mode either, since even if you clear the objectives quickly and efficiently, you sometimes get negative points. There’s also a wireless two player VS. mode, but the
"If you’re really hungry for a puzzler and the only system you own is a DS, then Zoo Keeper is only an average purchase"
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randomness also takes away from the fun there, since whoever gets the best board set up wins. Speaking of high scores being a problem, the developers set the score board really, really high. Good luck ever getting to the top of the board, even on easy. You’ll be lucky if you ever even get on the bottom.
While the core gameplay of Zoo Keeper is good, there is too much negativity surrounding it to make this a solid purchase, especially at $40. There are too many quirks in the game design limiting playability. If you’re really hungry for a puzzler and the only system you own is a DS, then Zoo Keeper is only an average purchase, and only when they drop the price to $20. If you own any other system, there are probably fifteen better options available, most of which start with "Te" and end with "Tris." Buy one of those instead.
