Demo Review 1: Lead The Meerkats

A pack of meerkats lived peacefully in a lushy green environment, until a rivaling group of dark blue meerkats stole it. The light-colored meerkat pack had to flee, but one of the meerkat females was separated from the group and fell in a nearby river. She woke up on the other side of the river, much later. If she wants to survive in this other environment, she needs to create her own meerkat pack. After which she'll have to try and cross the river and fight off the dark meerkats, in order to regain her home and save the light meerkats.

After you name your Meerkat, you realize that the whole place is... freaking dark! It's hard to see where you're going. It doesn't stay dark for very long, though. This game follows a day-and-night pattern. Your first mission is to find a yellow flag, near which you can then start building a burrow. These underground tunnels will protect the meerkats from predators. Your tasks, as you might have guessed, are to build a large burrow, to befriend some meerkats, to hunt for food, and to defend yourself from the dangerous wild animals. And of course, they wouldn't be wild animals if they didn't make babies. How do you create the new generation? By killing small animals, increasing your pack's vitality. When it's reached the maximum, meerkat pups are added to the pack.

And this is all the demo offers. Of course it's going to stop very early in the game. Personally, this game didn't attract me much. The CGI looks very nice, this feels like a wild environment; the world, however, feels bland after a while, as it's just a desert. However, it's a very open world, so you can go around and explore. There's no music to enjoy during the few minutes you spend playing this game. There's only sounds of wilderness, and that's it. However, I'll admit, the controls are well thought, as you can do anything better by shaking the Wimote and Nunchuk. All the buttons find a use. It's fun to see that the game expands constantly as you progress and the pack of meerkats grow, and the threats become bigger at the same time. I saw and battled a freaking eagle in the last minutes. The demo ends after three in-game days.

Is it worth paying? Honestly, I don't know. This game seems like it has potential; the idea is good, and there's interesting ideas. Sadly, its flaws don't really give me the impression that it's worth it. If you don't mind said flaws, however, maybe you should give it a try. The demo's free, so go try it!