As the game progresses, you have to examine animals brought to you. But be careful--if you make the owners wait too long they may get angry and leave. Once you’ve diagnosed your animal patient, you have to select a treatment. You find help and learn a lot about Outback animal ways, health and illnesses (including more than 144 animal diseases) from the books you buy and read.

You have to take care of your animal patients, but you also have to take care of yourself. You need to see to it that you get proper rest, nutrition and exercise. There are "Health Meters" to help you check on your health. You must also dress up to look your best.

Game play is straightforward--just point to a location you want your Vet to go to (such as the examining room table), and she moves there. Several options appear, and you choose which action to take. The game has three levels of play (easy to difficult), and you can choose between a free play option or scenario-based play where you are given specific problems and have to solve them. Help comes from an 26-page manual on disk and tool tips as you point to each icon.

Great fun for the whole family.

Next Life (** out of four), a mystery-adventure game, sideswipes these questions without really getting involved to any satisfying degree. If you play the game with an abundance of patience and free time, you may be able to drag your way through an imaginative and reasonably interesting story.

The storyline begins with the principle character, Adam, involved in a fiery SUV/tanker-truck accident. But he awakes from what we were lead to believe was a fatal accident and finds himself in a small, rusty hut with the cryptic number 2044 printed on the wall. Turns out the hut is on an isolated island and there are other inhabitants, some in numbered huts, and others outdoors. Adam (you) have the opportunity to explore the island and speak with the inhabitants, one of whom tells him prophetically, "When the bell in the tower strikes three times everybody falls asleep." Another praying on his knees by the shore, in response to Adam’s question "Where are we," says "Don’t you recognize Purgatory? I pray to be sent there (points upward) and not get sent there (points downward)." Adam also discovers that each of the other inhabitants had died at some time in the past and had no knowledge of "current" events.

Given such a strange beginning, it’s no wonder Adam wants to find out where is he and why, what he can do about it and just what’s going on anyway. And then there was the accident--maybe it wasn’t an accident at all.

As is typical for a third person point-and-click adventure, as you guide Adam actions, you point to a spot, and Adam moves there. It may be a part of the island, such as the shore, or a hut, or a person indoors or outdoors. Click and you can talk to a person or pick up an item. Be on the lookout for anything not bolted down so you can put in inventory, since you’re sure to need it later. You’ll also have some puzzles to solve.

The graphics are well done, and the music spooky enough. We found it annoying to find the extent to which we had to go hunting for needed items, some virtually hidden in the display. Some help was available by holding down the "E" key, which displayed exit points to other scenes. Scene transitions seemed slow, we noted a loss of speech sync at times, and the pace of the story was plodding. Rated "T" for teens.