World of Zoo is kind of interesting to me. It’s been out on shelves since October of 2009 and before I found it in the clearance bin I hadn’t heard of it. In fact, I could hardly find any mention of this game on the entire Internet, save for a few previews and screenshots.

So I’m here to help break that silence.

World of Zoo is actually nothing like World of Goo, a game I have actually heard of. It stars animals in various zoo enclosures under your purview, and you as the local zookeeper, have to take care of them. Taking care of them, in this case, involves throwing them toys, grooming them, giving them food, and generally making them as happy as possible. Really, calling this thing a ‘game’ is a bit of a stretch, it’s definitely an activity, though

There’s a lot of stuff to do in this, er, activity, if you define ‘stuff’ as lots of buttons to click on to make stuff happen. Want to give your animals a toy? Click a button. Want to spray them with the hose? Click a button. Want to build a new playset for them to play on? Click on the hammer button and then click on the spot to build it. All to get precious hearts (i.e. sweet, sweet affection) from your critters. Hearts allow you to expand your zoo and take care of more animals.

So, there’s nothing really wrong with this thing, exactly. It’s definitely geared to the younger crowd with its simplistic interface. And, as long as the animals are happy (which seems to be pretty easy to maintain) then they kind of creepily smile at you all the time.

All of this makes it a decent time-waster, and I’d have probably gotten more out of it if I was a pre-teen. But it’s definitely a solid title, which makes its lack of media coverage that much more baffling. This isn’t some quickie shovelware game, and it’s worth every bit of the five-spot I blew on it, and if I was born 20 years or so later, it might even be worth twice that to me.