Wild Earth - Africa

I'm sure many other animal lovers have played Wild Earth African Safari for the Wii, and yes this is essentially the same game. Specifically the older version of the game originally released to the computer. So, this lacks the minigames unlocked by beating a level seen in the wii version. Other than that though, expect the same levels and missions that were so fun in the original. Don't go into this expecting amazing graphics, they are very outdated. Still I loved the wii game as a kid and this takes me down memory lane. The fun voice acting is still there, and you can still learn about the animals you love while taking pictures of them. If you are looking for a really simple, low stress, animal photography walking simulator this is the game for you.

I tried running this game on Windows 11, and it just would not cooperate. Unless I used Digivoodoo, the game would instantly crash if I tried changing graphical settings. Also, even with compatibility mode, I could not get the water to look right, and it kept showing up as a flashing, annoying texture. I ended up refunding the game for these issues.

However, based on my prior experience with this game back on the Wii years ago, its a solid enough budget game. The graphics definitely haven't aged well, but the gameplay of roaming maps to find animals (and secret optional animals) for pictures, the fun educational narration about African animals, and the atmosphere are all decent for what it is. Don't expect Pokemon Snap here, but it should be fairly enjoyable if you don't have technical problems like me.

I am overall rating this game not recommended due to my technical issues with running it. If these were fixed, it would likely be a recommend from me.

A classic from 2006. This game holds so much nostalgia for me.

I played this game when I was 12 years old, installed from the installation disc borrowed from my local library. Unfortunately this version of the game required the disc to be present in the CD—ROM drive, which meant I could only play it for a limited time until I had to return it.

But now it's on Steam, and while this game was made for windows XP and the likes, I've managed to make it run just fine on Windows 11 by enabling compatibility mode for Windows Vista SP2, and running the game as administrator. If you are having issues (my game crashed when I tried to change graphics settings) I recommend you try that as well. I've heard reports of the game crashing after the first mission, but I cannot confirm this so far. The downside of this compatibility adjustment is that for some reason it will no longer run through Steam, you have to launch the executable manuallly. This is also the reason why I only have 5 minutes playtime, in case you were wondering.

The actual game is a timeless classic—you are a photojournalist, you are sent on numerous missions in the Serengeti of Africa to photograph creatures for a newspaper article. The game is played in first-person mode, and the game world is open (each mission is one map, free for you to explore). There is a special focus on being considerate about the environment, represented in-game by a meter which tells you how much you disturbed the animals, needless to say that running up to them and touching them will give you a penalty. Instead, you have to sneak up to them close enough so you can take those perfect photos but not close enough to disturb them, which is a nice game mechanic I think. The missions are all very varied and teach you a ton about the wildlife of Africa. The music is very epic and really gives you this cool African vibe. Overall the gameplay is incredibly relaxing and very immersive.

In terms of graphics, you can definitely see that the game is from 2006, but in my opinion they have aged very well, don't expect anything super fancy though—you can see the animal models are relatively low poly, textures are not that high res and the shader quality could be better— but I think it still looks very good. The hardware requirements are also minimal and it'll run on practically anything, I've managed to make it run on the Intel chipset family (which is a very low performance integrated GPU, much worse than even Intel HD Graphics) and with a 1.4 GHz processor.

If you like Indie games, want to learn a bit about our Earth, and would like to immerse yourself in an African Safari adventure, I'd say this game is for you! can definitely recommend.