Developer Blue Fang has traditionally done a great job balancing the cute with the realistic, as in their Zoo Tycoon series. World of Zoo is no disappointment, and is especially well tuned to the Wii audience, that is accustomed to a higher 'Toon quotient than gamers on other platforms. These aren't animals designed to portray the majesty and gravity of the animal world, these are animals that will make your toddlers squeal with delight and have your older children scrambling for play time. Around the enclosure for each animal, there are lots of interactive elements, cute tools, and interesting backdrops. Lots of unlockable goodies, including huge playsets, make for a constant sense of discovery as you play through. Even when you've unlocked all the animals in World of Zoo, you almost certainly won't have unlocked each of the named variations within each animal's family. On the surface, there may not seem to be as many animals here for play, but the extended family includes close to 100 distinct creatures. Factor in the wild-and-crazy tools built in for designing animals in different patterns and colors, and you may find yourself with a very zany zoo. Yes, you can even take a virtual picture to post and send to friends, if you think you've managed to make a singularly wacky animal design.

A big part of keeping things fun on Wii is to find ways to promote visual interaction through the motion controls. World of Zoo provides the big-zoo equivalent of a petting zoo experience, encouraging you to reach out and touch animals, play with them using toys, and giving you some lightweight tasks that involve tools. The visuals around this are great, and the sound effects are equally suited to the action. Few people really know what washing a zebra should sound like, but you'll be a believer after the experience here. Better still that more people can get into the action, and best yet when an animal breaks the proscenium and gets close for a cuddle. These so-called Magic Moments are a hugely creative and successful device, making it appear that the animal is sticking its head outside the screen and into the living room. Once true 3D gaming becomes the norm, this type of thing will become obvious, but the developers deserve huge credit for making the leap. There are lots of neat little effects like this scattered throughout World of Zoo for you to discover, including a small jukebox in each level that allows you to control what music is playing while you enjoy your time with the animals.

Enjoyment is the primary goal here, after all. Playing a game that stresses simulation is rewarding and challenging and in a roundabout way fun, but the main focus in World of Zoo is just to goof around with your animals. You earn bigger points for more interaction, and for keeping the animals happy. In this way, World of Zoo has a light form of simulation gameplay, but the margins for error are huge here compared to true sim games. In the beginning, you'll choose a single animal family to play with and rack up points just for doing things like tossing balls around, scratching their little chinny-chin chins, and dropping them food. You can pick up poo, build new structures in their enclosure, and even add animals after earning sufficient star points. The key is to keep interacting with animals, or you can accept challenges that bring the focus in narrower on cleaning animals, finding treasure in each area, or diagnosing and healing animals.

The potential for multiple players to join in on the fun is where World of Zoo really shines and rises above anything in the sim arena we've seen yet on this platform. The second, third, and fourth players have a limited palette when playing with animals, but can get every bit as involved as you in the action. The net impact of this multiplayer is to make you wish for a wider screen; two players can crowd the place, and four is ridiculous. Other players may accidentally take away objects from you, or mess with an animal you're trying to get some solo time with. Multiplayer action in this game requires a good sporting attitude that can give up control to others and appreciate the non-competitive nature of World of Zoo. The point is making the animals happy, and if people work together that just makes it all easier. The replay value even for a single player is huge, from opening up new animal species, to earning new individual animals, to earning special achievements. The only missed opportunity is online content, but Wii games just appear determined as a class to be late for the party, so we can't hold the developer's feet too much to the fire for following the trend.

There's a bias in World of Zoo toward rewarding players no matter how much intention they show while playing. Even losing track of your animals will eventually earn you some type of reward, so you never feel pressure to perform or any rush. Determined gamers will find ways to expedite the rewards that come from helping animals get their needs met, keeping the animals and their enclosures clean, and launching challenge missions periodically. The maintenance of the animals isn't mysterious and, apart from some jittery controls on the medical scanner, is easy to manage with motion controls. The game doesn't so much feature a tutorial as a very gradual difficulty curve that lets you learn by doing rather than by reading a manual. Players hoping for extensive breeding, enclosure design, and crowd development mechanics are out of luck. Unlike the "tycoon" format that gives you an underlying profit motive, World of Zoo is only about earning points for doing things with animals. There are advanced prizes that will take time and determination, but nothing out of reach for a relatively committed player. If your child can wave a controller and point it at the screen, World of Zoo won't be a disappointment or frustration. At the same time, older kids will appreciate the finely tuned sense of challenge present in unlocking each and every creature from an animal's specific family.

The way to implement motion controls is either with rock-solid precision or beautifully mushy, forgiving gestures. There are times when each is appropriate, and times when the wrong type of control will kill a player's enjoyment. World of Zoo walks the fine line admirably, and mostly succeeds in providing the right controls at the right moment. A few funky things we noticed were the use of the +/- buttons for tool controls, although an on-screen button brings players into the same set of menus. Alternating between tools and the pointer-hand is also keyed to these buttons, and it's just darned awkward considering the placement on your Wii-Mote. The way second-string players interact with the tools is a bit murky, but it basically comes down to each person selecting his or her tool of choice and then switching that tool on or off from the main play screen. What's missing is some kind of hot-key arrangement or rotating wheel that could hold several tools, toys, and food. The back-and-forth into menus is a slowdown and distraction in an otherwise clean gaming experience. The one-click arrangements for building are a perfect example of what went right in the design phase, as are the real-time mini-games like cleaning and healing animals, or sprucing up your environment.

The simplicity of World of Zoo is refreshing, considering that simulation gameplay isn't typically known for its scaled-back control scheme. Having power at your fingertips without the accompanying confusion makes this a fun ride for kids, and there's good multiplayer gameplay here as long as everyone can share. A profusion of sweet and cute animals and smart design that encourages creative play make this a winner for the young set, and older onlookers will appreciate the soothing music and visuals. World of Zoo isn't at all a poor man's Zoo Tycoon, since it draws from all the same rich source material and content. Kids will love that they have something built for them that takes out the boring old commerce from zoo-keeping, replacing it with the fun stuff that we like to think running a zoo is all about. If only it were this simple, we'd all be zookeepers!