Convert the heathens of Isola Island!

Virtual Villagers 5 New Believers sees you return to the island of Isola, but this time your villagers have been trapped by a tribe of unbelieving heathens!

To survive this time you’ll need to balance building and finding food with spreading faith, but Virtual Virtual Villagers 5 is still the same casual game. you start with a group of villagers, and must keep them motivated, train them and much more. It can seem strange at first, but the in game tutorial is very good and if you follow the instructions you’ll soon get the hang of it.

Villagers can be picked up and dropped on a part of the environment you want them to interact with. This could mean building a shack, dismantling a heathen totem or even trying to convert a local! The pacing of Virtual Villagers 5 makes it ideal for casual gameplay, but there is much less personalization involved than in The Sims, for example.

The gameplay is also pretty linear – there are lots of things you have to do if you want to progress, so there’s not much freedom. Nevertheless, Virtual Villagers 5 is a gently compelling game if you give it a chance.

The biggest criticism of the game has to be the graphics. While the cartoon style is OK, there has been no improvement over the last game and the interface is starting to look tired. The Villagers could be better animated too, as Virtual Villagers 5 looks incredibly basic for 2011.

For fans of the series, Virtual Villagers 5 is more of the same, so if that’s what you want you will enjoy it. Overall it’s a shame this fifth installment doesn’t really include any major improvements or gameplay innovations.