It’s certainly a change of pace, but during its long journey from banner next-generation PS3 title shown in 2006 to its appearance in North America this fall, Afrika apparently missed the extra polish I expected it to have. Brought here by Natsume of Harvest Moon fame, it did get Trophy support, but the base camp menu, in-the-field controls, and complete lack of voice acting make it feel like a PS2-era game with PS3-era wildlife graphics.

A day in the life of a wildlife photographer consists of checking your laptop to read or reply to mission emails, navigating the base camp tent’s odd menu structure of items on the edge of your tent to change equipment, venturing out into the reserve in your jeep – at first with the help of a driver, later alone – to take photos, and then returning to turn in the photos, sleep, and then repeat the process. You pick up new equipment and upgrades as funds permit.

Cash rewards vary mission to mission, and there’s an always-open mission welcoming a new photograph of a new animal each day for some money. Mission emails include a sample photo or video to give you a clear idea of what you have to do, and the National Geographic library of animals you’ve discovered gives you clear guidance on where to find that animal again in the reserve. It doesn’t seem likely that you’ll be stumped all that often.

Visually the terrain in the starting area seems on the simple side. The animals are attractively textured and animated, but at this stage of the game I’m not able to get close either in person or with the weak zoom lens you start with so it’s hard to see just how nice they look.

The controls for snapping photos take some getting used to, but aren’t complicated. Once back at camp, each mission email lets you reply with a single photo attachment, which is given a letter grade based on four criteria including “angle” and “distance”. This grade determines how much of the offered bounty is awarded to you. The downside to this system is that once the picture is submitted you can’t try a different one or offer multiple photos to let the client choose the best one (and maybe pay you more). You send your picture in, it gets rated, and you get your reward.

The upgrades section of the laptop is a missed opportunity. At least early on the simulated web store limits what’s available, showing empty equipment slots all over the page instead of taking advantage of it to give sneak previews of where the game could be headed in terms of variety or types of equipment.

I did find myself enjoying the time waiting patiently by the watering hole for a giraffe to get thirsty. While it sounds boring, this simple mission taught me to keep my distance. I discovered I’d gotten too close when the giraffe just stopped and stared at me instead of coming closer to drink. The manual hints that I’ll be warned if you’re in danger of being attacked, so not everything is a herbivore that stops and waits patiently for you to leave. It’s moments like this that make me eager to earn more and unlock better cameras or lenses.

Missions aren’t necessarily the only reason to snap photos. While waiting for the giraffes to walk over I looked around with the starter binoculars and snapped photos of animals in various poses on the off chance they’d be of use later, along with a couple of birds I hadn’t seen earlier. You can store up to 200 photos on the laptop back at camp, but the camera can hold a small fraction of that.

The biggest surprise of the game came when I decided to save. The save file takes up a whopping 387 Megabytes of space. I imagine this is a placeholder since I definitely don’t have that many photos saved, but it’s just huge.

I’m looking forward to exploring more of the reserve and finding out how many different environments are there. The map hints at other areas at the corners of the current one, but I’m still being led by a driver in what amounts to a set of tutorial missions so I haven’t yet taken the jeep out and about to find out how expansive the world is by myself.

Logo from IGN.