Let me just say this:

Do what you always do...buy the game when it comes out(you said you bought every other version).

Go into it with an open mind...and get your boyfriend to play with you.

See if it feels any different.

At worst...you'll get a mic out of the deal.

Yeah, well, in the beginning it's all cool and you really want to collect all those bugs and fish and get all different kinds of fruit trees and the biggest house and all that.. but once you're halfway there the game gets kinda boring. At least, it did for me. I haven't played the DS version in over a year and the 'Cube version, woohee, can't even remember. :p It just gets old eventually, because it's so very limited. Eventually. Takes quite a while to reach that point though, longer than you're like to spend on most games. I do hope City Folks gives you more incentive to keep on playing. More options, bigger town, more than just a town, but maybe forests and surrounding areas, maybe even a neighboring town or two you can get to. Not just the internet thing where you can go visit your friends' towns that different yet again kinda the same...

Also, it would be nice to have CPUs actually react to things you wrote and did to them, I mean, in the previous games, you could just whack your friendly neighbouring mouse around the head all day, write her incredibly insulting letters and do all kinds of nast and unspeakable things to her, but a few minutes later she's happily walking around town again telling you what a great friend you are and how she likes you coming around to see her so much.. XD

Yeah I'll see what I'll do when the game comes out. There might be also some features they haven't talked about yet but I'm not getting high hopes for this... At least the mic will probably be used with other games if I still find AC boring. XD

Also @ Superchunk: Yeah I can see why it could be appealing for kids.. It's not too hard and you have some small customisation. It's just for someone like me who's used to games like Sims (complex and high customisation) I couldn't understand the point of this game.

I wanted to see what some core gamers would find so great about it...

I liked the countryside setting. I liked the fact the game could be played at a relxed pace and it was quite. It wasn't in your face. I don't like citys as such I do not feel good about AC:City Folk & it is likely to be another reason for me not to get a wii.