No, not "Hakuna Matata", the famous song from Disney's The Lion King, Hakuna Matata, the fantastic PlayStation 3 safari game! Has anyone ever heard of it? Well, I would have to say that this is one of the best (probably second-best behind the legendary Zoo Tycoon franchise) wildlife games I have ever played. If you own a PlayStation 3, I recommend buying this game. It is a bit different than other wildlife games, but it is very unique. You choose one of two playable characters, and head out to the [fictional] Manyanga Conservation Area in East Africa. You are on a survey to document the reserve's biodiversity. At your basecamp, you can log onto your laptop and access your JamboNavi software to read messages sent from Head Office that instruct you on what to do. Your guide, James, drives you around each area. You can exit the jeep to photograph animals, and when you discover a new species, you send a picture to Head Office confirming its presence in the reserve. Other missions, like photographing a giraffe drinking, and snapping a head-on shot of a zebra, can be completed as well. After a few missions, you have the opportunity to do a Big Game mission. These involve snapping a cheetah hunting, African wild dogs hunting as a pack, rhino/hippo duels, and even standoffs between buffaloes/lions, leopards/baboons, and much more. After each of the first five Big Game missions, you unlock a new area to explore. There are five in total: Duma Steppe (the location of basecamp), Kiboko Swamp, Choroa Gorge, Lake Heroe, and Kiwanja Plain. Once you unlock Kiboko Swamp, you are allowed to drive the jeep yourself. Be wary, though, because if you venture to close to elephants, male zebras, buffalos, or any of the defensive animals and carnivores, they may attack you. There is no gore, just a first-person view of the animal charging you, then it fades to black. You awake at basecamp, having lost all of the pictures you took while out on safari that day. About halfway through the game, you can go out on night safaris, however, you can only be driven by your companion. There are over 50 animals in the game, from the iconic African elephants, lions, meerkats and zebras, to tsetse flies, aardvarks, hyraxes, gerenuks, pygmy hippos, and others. At the main menu, there is an entire National Geographic photo/video database, a field guide with info on all of the animals, and a viewer that lets you watch the virtual animals while listening to the game's absolutely fantastic soundtrack. You can also redo Big Game missions, look at your photo gallery, and post your pictures online for others to see. What's good about the game is that you cannot run the animals over, so there won't be any immature people ramming into impala or guineafowl just for fun. There are a few flaws in the game: some bushes are like brick walls and completely stop your jeep when you run into them, the grass and leaves look poorly done compared to the animals and habitats, and there is no dialogue (only subtitles), but that can be either good or bad depending on what kind of gamer you are. However, the good far outpaces the bad in this particular game, and if you love wildlife, I highly suggest you purchase this. It is not available in U.S., U.K., etc. stores, as it is made by a Japanese company; it is only available online for non-Japan/Taiwan(?) residents. So search a few websites for it! The game was released in 2008, so the price should've gone down quite considerably. I bought my English copy (the game comes in Japanese, Taiwanese, or English; however the guide book is always Japanese) for less than $30, so try it out! *Hakuna Matata is the English title, Afrika is most likely Japanse. Keep in mind that the game case and book is always Japanese!
