Wild Earth Game Review

Wild Earth sends players of all ages on a breathtaking safari through the plains of Africa. The mission: to photograph the essence and beauty of the natural world around them. The photos will accompany articles in various newspapers and magazines.

One of the keys to Google Earth is its ability to zoom in to a high resolution picture of the planet and make it seem like it's right in front of you. Google has a huge database of this information, including street level maps for the United States and several other countries. (The database doesn't include every country and city, however, so don't expect to be able to see the pyramids in Egypt, for example.) Google also offers a layer that shows textured 3-D drawings of buildings.

Another layer that's very cool is the geographic web layer. This reveals links (marked by a golden, lowercase "i") that open a window with more information about the location. The best part is that you can switch these layers on and off at will.

The latest version of Google Earth includes a flight simulator. You can take the controls of an F-16 fighter jet or an SR22 propeller plane and fly over your favorite landmarks.

You can also view images taken from three waterhole dam cams - Djuma in South Africa, Okaukuejo in Namibia and Mashatu in Botswana. All of the waterholes are busy throughout the day with predators and prey.