In a bizarre turn of events, I wound up playing not only Aion this weekend, but…sigh…Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility for the Wii. I went out Saturday night to cancel my preorders of Champions Online and Aion (preordered Aion on Steam to get more free shit!) but didn’t want to stiff the poor saps at GameStop. So, with my wife in mind, I picked up a used copy of Harvest Moon. I figured a country gal like her would enjoy it.

Upon my arrival home with my son, I found the wife sitting in the living room with my daughter, playing Animal Crossing. Aha, perfect timing. I tossed her the case and heard the phrase, “here, your turn to play”. Shit. So, I popped Harvest Moon in and plopped down with my daughter who was anxiously awaiting what was now called “the farm game”. I fired up the game, chose between the girl and boy avatar – yeah, had to use the girl – and was then forced to sit through the process of reading the games storyline. Not reading silently mind you, because if I missed a single dialogue box my daughter would pipe in, “what’d he say?!?”

The premise of the game is simple. Your character came across a brochure for a “new life as a rancher” on some nice island which has a quaint little village on it. You get there, and receive a rent free house with a decent plot of land that’s just waiting to be farmed. Talking to people yields you all sorts of free gifts that will aid you in starting off life as a rancher. It’s all pretty far fetched, but it works as a flimsy excuse to get to the meat of the game without just calling it Farm Island 2000.

The game is very eastern in its characters animations and reactions to certain things, so some explanation was needed for my wife. At one point while watching me play she asked, “Why was that teardrop bigger than her head?” But overall, the cast of characters are very western looking, as if the developers were pushing for a traditional “western rancher” feel.

I’ve really only got started in the “farming” portion of the game. But I will say it’s relaxing, and really not all that bad. Anymore, when I sit to play games I’m looking for that “awesome” experience. But man, when I got done playing Harvest Moon for about a half hour, it felt like I took a nap.