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If you or your child loves zoo animals, and especially have aspirations to being a zoo vet, you have come to the right place. In Zoo Vet 2: Endangered Animals, you are a new vet at the zoo. You will diagnose and treat a variety of animals with a number of different aliments, as well as feed and maintain the animals that aren't in critical condition.

You begin your first day at the zoo with an introduction to the team. Dr. Dean McAllister is the head vet. Holly is the ever-sunny vet tech. Andrew is one of the zookeepers. Regina is a bit more taciturn, and I've seen her working with both Andrew and Holly. I think she's another zookeeper, but I'm not quite sure. In any case, as you visit each animal in need, be sure and listen to the other team members. You aren't going to successfully diagnose and treat the animal without their informed help.

Happily, there are three modes of difficulty in Zoo Vet. I am a veterinary genius on easy mode. Let's not talk about what happened when I moved to medium ... I'm sure that grizzly bear didn't mind his sutures looking like something from a small child's embroidery sampler. I did not even try hard mode. I think you'd actually need to be attending veterinary school to succeed at that level.

The zoo map on the wall is what gets you to the main part of the game. Each animal marker has either a red, yellow or green border, or it is completely blue. The red markers need treatment right away. The yellow marked animals need care, but it's not so urgent. Animals you've already successfully treated have the green border. Those blue markers are perfectly healthy (for now).

The red marked animals are where you are going to find the most complex part of the game. You have to ask the right questions of two of your team members, examine the animal, come up with a diagnosis, and then provide treatment. While the procedures, thankfully, aren't as graphic as they might be, you'll still be using a stethoscope, taking blood samples, checking temperatures and the other kinds of diagnostic things you'd expect. There are ultrasounds and X-rays to be had as well. Did you know that you take an elephant's temperature by inserting the thermometer into a fresh dung ball? No, I didn't know that either. Apparently if you just take a rectal temperature, it will read cooler than the animal's actual temperature. It's diagnostics like this that remind me why I studied physics and avoided all life sciences in school.

Easy mode is quite easy. The instrument you need to use is highlighted in yellow. The text tells you which type of exam to perform next. It's almost impossible to get a low score in this mode — which is not to say that it's impossible. Even on easy mode, the game was a bit challenging for my 8-year-old daughter. She could read what the techs were suggesting, but she kept wanting to give the animals shots whether they needed them or not. She actually had a score of -17 out of 1,000 when I made her move. Sorry about that, mister bald eagle. And don't ask me why she took an X-ray of his posterior ...

The yellow-marked animals are a slightly different challenge. This time, you're in the enclosure with the animals. First you'll get a little signal above the animal's head that you need to feed it. You pick the correct food for the animal from the list provided. Basic common sense will help with this. After that, the animal gets a little red cross with a circle over its head. You get a brief description of what's going on and have a choice of treatment, like a vaccination to protect the animal from a flu outbreak. Once you've cared for the animal, you can actually move (kind of slowly) around the enclosure. You'll see little curls of paper here and there. Click on them to collect them. These are pictures of animals and nature that are added to the photo album on your desk in your office. Whenever you're in your office, you can flip through it and look at some truly nice pictures.

Your zoo office is where you start each game. Along with having the zoo map that leads you to your tasks, you have plaques on the wall and a picture and an album on your desk. A trophy case holds any trophies you earn by getting a perfect score treating an animal. The door to the office leads you back to the main menu, where you can save your game, start a new one or adjust any of your game options. Finally, you have a desktop computer. Make sure you don't skip the computer. You have trivia games, info about animals, a nice glossary, a word search puzzle, jigsaw puzzles, animal videos, historical info and a little section on careers.

Zoo Vet isn't an action game. It's definitely a thinking game. While I enjoy the easy mode, I like that you can increase the challenge if you want. You can certainly replay the game as much as you want, but you are going to see the same cases each time. It makes sense. Each case is so detailed that it couldn't possibly be randomly generated. The animated graphics of the game aren't bad. They aren't spectacular, but they get the job done. The voice acting is done well and suits the characters. The actual photographs are great.

If you love animals and are interested in learning more about them, I think you'll really enjoy Zoo Vet. You budding exotic animal vets out there — ratchet up the difficulty and see how you do. All in all, it's an interesting game experience.