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WiiWare has had it’s share of home run titles so far, sadly it’s also had some misses. Konami’s Critter Round Up is sadly one of those misses.

Critter Roundup is a puzzle game that sees you traveling the world to help separate animals into their own pens. Although the whys of how all of the fences in the world have disappeared at the same time, or how you can build new ones so fast is never explained. The game plays out like a twisted version of the old-school arcade title Qix.

In each of the 50 single player levels you have to separate animals out into separate pens. Only like animals can share the same space and once they are separated they’ll launch into an animal specific happy dance. Each level gives you three lives to accomplish the feat of separation, but one touch from any of the animals takes one of your lives away. As you progress through the levels you’ll run into some more carnivorous creatures that will start eating some of the other animals lowering your score. This dog eat dog (or crocodile eats chicken) behavior can actually help you to beat the levels quickly, and was an odd addition.

The most disappointing part of this game was the poor visuals that it had to offer. I think Konami was going for a stylized look for this game, but things were either to blurry or spasticly animated for me to really tell. I realize that the WiiWare downloads are size limited, but there is no excuse for muddy textures and limp animations like this when games such as Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King and LostWinds exist on the service. This looks to be an example of lazy quick to market shovelware that I was hoping wouldn’t make an appearance this early in the lifetime of the WiiWare download service.

There are a collection of mini-games thrown in that are somewhat fun, but nothing that would have me load up this game just to play them. I’m going to look for my multiplayer gaming elsewhere.

At $10 not even the mini-games can have me recommending this title. Your money is best spent elsewhere or spread among a couple VC games. I picked up this title hoping for a fun and simple puzzle game that I could play with my family, instead I found an uninspired title that will quickly be removed from my system. Konami’s Critter Roundup should have been put down like some of the rabid animals you are forced to avoid in this game.

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