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October 30, 2007 –
Earlier this year Microsoft dropped what many considered to be the biggest bomb of 2007 at the Electronics Entertainment Expo, otherwise known as E3, in Santa Monica, California. What was the earth shattering announcement, you ask? Well, it came during Microsoft’s press conference, the few hours during the show when every eye would be on the Xbox 360, and the Big M chose that window of time to show the world, for the very first time, Viva Pinata: Party Animals.

Essentially Party Animals is a family-based spin-off of Rare’s surprisingly solid strategy game that released late last year. While Rare’s creation certainly turned the heads of both old and young gamers alike, Party Animals is clearly geared towards a more youthful sect of gamers with its run of the mill gameplay that fails at replicating a sort of Mario Kart mixed with Fuzion Frenzy concoction.

Horstachio at her best.


Up to four players, either offline or on Xbox Live, can participate in a short, medium, or long tournament of events that mix races and mini-games together to establish the all-important point standings that determine the overall winner. Races are broken up by a predetermined set of mini-games, but there’s no way to choose which of these diversions you want to partake in. The game just sort of throws them at you randomly. There are six core types of mini-games and several variants that spin off from them, though it’s all too clear which game type you’re playing when a new competition starts up. A few of them will be enjoyable for those under the age of seven, but if you’re any older than that there’s absolutely no challenge to be found within Party Animals.

The inherent problem that really bogs down the action in Viva Pinata’s aesthetic successor is that the mini-games simply don’t stem from a fun design scheme. The ones that are enjoyable are almost direct copies of other games that can be found within Fuzion Frenzy 1 or 2 while other games seem to be regurgitated over and over with small additives to try and pass them off as new.

The racing provides a bit more entertainment value, but the limited number of seven core tracks – again, there are slight variations on these as well – wind up getting stale in a hurry. The different weapon types (two can be carried at any one time) have fairly standard effects on other characters. Some will derail them totally, others will slow them down, and then there are the classic boost items that need to be used strategically to win a race. Or at least, they’re supposed to be used strategically. In all of my time with the game I never once lost a race, no matter how I used the power ups and regardless of whether I had the option to “Keep the game close” turned on or off. Indeed, achievement point whores will love Viva Pinata: Party Animals.

The game’s strongest points are in both graphical and sound design, but that’s more to do with the fact that Rare essentially shipped Krome (the developer behind Party Animals) all of their assets from the original Viva Pinata as reference. Each of the eight characters, as well as the announcer, also feature some nice personality delivered through comical — albeit child oriented — dialogue.

Closing Comments
To reiterate the reoccurring theme of this review: If you have a child under the age of seven then chances are you

November 10, 2006 –
Viva Pi¿ata has an undeniable charm to it. The game is squarely aimed at a younger demographic with cuddly pi¿atas that inhabit the land and cartoonish character-style and voices. Yet, the game design hits at something that can’t be outgrown: the joy of discovery. That is, perhaps, the best way to describe Rare’s new gem.

Viva Pi¿ata also culls from so many different ideas that it is hard to succinctly explain what the point of the game is. The English developer’s elaborately woven and complex endeavor brings great depth to the normally pallid kid genre, and that’s part of what makes Viva Pi¿ata such a great game. Despite ample room for improvement, this is easily one of the best titles, if not the best, Rare game since Microsoft bought it in 2002.

Part The Sims, part Animal Crossing and part resource management strategy, Viva Pi¿ata stands alone as a deep and engaging title on Xbox 360, fully accessible to people of all ages. To describe the game, we’ll start from the beginning. The game kicks off by providing you with a junk-riddled patch of packed soil and tasks you with shaping the land using a shovel. The point? To attract living pi¿atas, each with chuckle-inducing names that are all candy and sweet-themed takes on their animal likeness, in hopes of convincing them to take up residency. Like real-life animals, these pi¿atas have preferences for what their environments, neighbors and food should be. If you meet the first set of requirements, perhaps by planting enough grass, you’ll see the pi¿ata walking around just outside the boundaries of your garden. Make your land a little more attractive and they’ll stop by for a visit. If they find what they were looking for, which could be anything from eating another pi¿ata to finding a certain type of flower, then they’ll take up residence.

Bare beginnings.Once a pi¿ata takes up residency, it changes from a black and white to the pastel blasted look that everyone associates with the party toys. When it does, you’ll find that each one has a unique personality. Certain pi¿atas just don’t get along with each other and will start fighting when they bump into each other. Others are friendlier and it isn’t uncommon to see one pi¿ata playfully chasing another around the garden in a squeak-filled game. Their personalities are strong enough that we often found ourselves attached to certain pi¿atas and unwilling to budge when it came to decisions involving their ultimate fate.

Convincing pi¿atas to take up residency isn’t the only interaction you can have with them. Each pi¿ata can be named, convinced to do the romance dance with another of its kind by meeting certain conditions to breed more pi¿atas, or dressed up with a wide variety of accessories. Or you can sell them for a profit or just beat them to death with your shovel. Since there isn’t really an end goal for Viva Pi¿ata, what you do with your garden and its inhabitants is completely up to you. This freedom makes it a guarantee that no two people will have the same garden as so much of the game is dependent on small actions, choices and random events. It also guarantees that you’ll have a unique experience every time you turn on the game. Although the world is vibrant and alive, it stays that way when you turn the system off so that you don’t come back to chaos.

There’s a ton to do in Viva Pi¿ata; so much that trying to describe everything here would make this review far too lengthy for its own good. Suffice it to say, the game is constantly filled with moments where you find something new to do and it keeps you fully occupied all of the time; there aren’t really many moments where you don’t know what to do next. The game encourages discovery as well through the leveling system. For every new action or goal you meet, you’ll be rewarded with experience points. As you level up, new things are introduced to add variety and flair to your garden and pi¿atas, ensuring that you’ll constantly find new things to see and do. Some pi¿atas only make an appearance when you’ve gained enough experience. Other things, such as objects to place in your garden, purchasable barnyard pi¿atas, and accessories have a list that expands in scope as you progress through levels.

Gardening can get expensive.This discovery is made even more fun thanks to the nice graphics and the style with which the pi¿atas have been infused. Although the area that you can explore is limited to your garden, you’ll find that everything is animated and full of life. Trees and flowers grow before your eyes as various pi¿atas use them as hiding places and the pi¿atas themselves all run around and behave comically. Just watching the Barkbark run around with his tongue hanging out is enough to crack us up. Say what you will about the classic Rare bubble-eyed cuddly design, but it works in a game like Viva Pinata. Unfortunately, the engine chugs everytime the game autosaves, which occurs frequently. It only lasts a moment, but it happens often enough to jolt you out of the experience.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next
  

November 10, 2006 –
Viva Pi¿ata has an undeniable charm to it. The game is squarely aimed at a younger demographic with cuddly pi¿atas that inhabit the land and cartoonish character-style and voices. Yet, the game design hits at something that can’t be outgrown: the joy of discovery. That is, perhaps, the best way to describe Rare’s new gem.

Viva Pi¿ata also culls from so many different ideas that it is hard to succinctly explain what the point of the game is. The English developer’s elaborately woven and complex endeavor brings great depth to the normally pallid kid genre, and that’s part of what makes Viva Pi¿ata such a great game. Despite ample room for improvement, this is easily one of the best titles, if not the best, Rare game since Microsoft bought it in 2002.

Part The Sims, part Animal Crossing and part resource management strategy, Viva Pi¿ata stands alone as a deep and engaging title on Xbox 360, fully accessible to people of all ages. To describe the game, we’ll start from the beginning. The game kicks off by providing you with a junk-riddled patch of packed soil and tasks you with shaping the land using a shovel. The point? To attract living pi¿atas, each with chuckle-inducing names that are all candy and sweet-themed takes on their animal likeness, in hopes of convincing them to take up residency. Like real-life animals, these pi¿atas have preferences for what their environments, neighbors and food should be. If you meet the first set of requirements, perhaps by planting enough grass, you’ll see the pi¿ata walking around just outside the boundaries of your garden. Make your land a little more attractive and they’ll stop by for a visit. If they find what they were looking for, which could be anything from eating another pi¿ata to finding a certain type of flower, then they’ll take up residence.

Bare beginnings.Once a pi¿ata takes up residency, it changes from a black and white to the pastel blasted look that everyone associates with the party toys. When it does, you’ll find that each one has a unique personality. Certain pi¿atas just don’t get along with each other and will start fighting when they bump into each other. Others are friendlier and it isn’t uncommon to see one pi¿ata playfully chasing another around the garden in a squeak-filled game. Their personalities are strong enough that we often found ourselves attached to certain pi¿atas and unwilling to budge when it came to decisions involving their ultimate fate.

Convincing pi¿atas to take up residency isn’t the only interaction you can have with them. Each pi¿ata can be named, convinced to do the romance dance with another of its kind by meeting certain conditions to breed more pi¿atas, or dressed up with a wide variety of accessories. Or you can sell them for a profit or just beat them to death with your shovel. Since there isn’t really an end goal for Viva Pi¿ata, what you do with your garden and its inhabitants is completely up to you. This freedom makes it a guarantee that no two people will have the same garden as so much of the game is dependent on small actions, choices and random events. It also guarantees that you’ll have a unique experience every time you turn on the game. Although the world is vibrant and alive, it stays that way when you turn the system off so that you don’t come back to chaos.

There’s a ton to do in Viva Pi¿ata; so much that trying to describe everything here would make this review far too lengthy for its own good. Suffice it to say, the game is constantly filled with moments where you find something new to do and it keeps you fully occupied all of the time; there aren’t really many moments where you don’t know what to do next. The game encourages discovery as well through the leveling system. For every new action or goal you meet, you’ll be rewarded with experience points. As you level up, new things are introduced to add variety and flair to your garden and pi¿atas, ensuring that you’ll constantly find new things to see and do. Some pi¿atas only make an appearance when you’ve gained enough experience. Other things, such as objects to place in your garden, purchasable barnyard pi¿atas, and accessories have a list that expands in scope as you progress through levels.

Gardening can get expensive.This discovery is made even more fun thanks to the nice graphics and the style with which the pi¿atas have been infused. Although the area that you can explore is limited to your garden, you’ll find that everything is animated and full of life. Trees and flowers grow before your eyes as various pi¿atas use them as hiding places and the pi¿atas themselves all run around and behave comically. Just watching the Barkbark run around with his tongue hanging out is enough to crack us up. Say what you will about the classic Rare bubble-eyed cuddly design, but it works in a game like Viva Pinata. Unfortunately, the engine chugs everytime the game autosaves, which occurs frequently. It only lasts a moment, but it happens often enough to jolt you out of the experience.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next
  

October 30, 2007 –
Earlier this year Microsoft dropped what many considered to be the biggest bomb of 2007 at the Electronics Entertainment Expo, otherwise known as E3, in Santa Monica, California. What was the earth shattering announcement, you ask? Well, it came during Microsoft’s press conference, the few hours during the show when every eye would be on the Xbox 360, and the Big M chose that window of time to show the world, for the very first time, Viva Pinata: Party Animals.

Essentially Party Animals is a family-based spin-off of Rare’s surprisingly solid strategy game that released late last year. While Rare’s creation certainly turned the heads of both old and young gamers alike, Party Animals is clearly geared towards a more youthful sect of gamers with its run of the mill gameplay that fails at replicating a sort of Mario Kart mixed with Fuzion Frenzy concoction.

Horstachio at her best.


Up to four players, either offline or on Xbox Live, can participate in a short, medium, or long tournament of events that mix races and mini-games together to establish the all-important point standings that determine the overall winner. Races are broken up by a predetermined set of mini-games, but there’s no way to choose which of these diversions you want to partake in. The game just sort of throws them at you randomly. There are six core types of mini-games and several variants that spin off from them, though it’s all too clear which game type you’re playing when a new competition starts up. A few of them will be enjoyable for those under the age of seven, but if you’re any older than that there’s absolutely no challenge to be found within Party Animals.

The inherent problem that really bogs down the action in Viva Pinata’s aesthetic successor is that the mini-games simply don’t stem from a fun design scheme. The ones that are enjoyable are almost direct copies of other games that can be found within Fuzion Frenzy 1 or 2 while other games seem to be regurgitated over and over with small additives to try and pass them off as new.

The racing provides a bit more entertainment value, but the limited number of seven core tracks – again, there are slight variations on these as well – wind up getting stale in a hurry. The different weapon types (two can be carried at any one time) have fairly standard effects on other characters. Some will derail them totally, others will slow them down, and then there are the classic boost items that need to be used strategically to win a race. Or at least, they’re supposed to be used strategically. In all of my time with the game I never once lost a race, no matter how I used the power ups and regardless of whether I had the option to “Keep the game close” turned on or off. Indeed, achievement point whores will love Viva Pinata: Party Animals.

The game’s strongest points are in both graphical and sound design, but that’s more to do with the fact that Rare essentially shipped Krome (the developer behind Party Animals) all of their assets from the original Viva Pinata as reference. Each of the eight characters, as well as the announcer, also feature some nice personality delivered through comical — albeit child oriented — dialogue.

Closing Comments
To reiterate the reoccurring theme of this review: If you have a child under the age of seven then chances are you

November 10, 2006 –
Viva Pi¿ata has an undeniable charm to it. The game is squarely aimed at a younger demographic with cuddly pi¿atas that inhabit the land and cartoonish character-style and voices. Yet, the game design hits at something that can’t be outgrown: the joy of discovery. That is, perhaps, the best way to describe Rare’s new gem.

Viva Pi¿ata also culls from so many different ideas that it is hard to succinctly explain what the point of the game is. The English developer’s elaborately woven and complex endeavor brings great depth to the normally pallid kid genre, and that’s part of what makes Viva Pi¿ata such a great game. Despite ample room for improvement, this is easily one of the best titles, if not the best, Rare game since Microsoft bought it in 2002.

Part The Sims, part Animal Crossing and part resource management strategy, Viva Pi¿ata stands alone as a deep and engaging title on Xbox 360, fully accessible to people of all ages. To describe the game, we’ll start from the beginning. The game kicks off by providing you with a junk-riddled patch of packed soil and tasks you with shaping the land using a shovel. The point? To attract living pi¿atas, each with chuckle-inducing names that are all candy and sweet-themed takes on their animal likeness, in hopes of convincing them to take up residency. Like real-life animals, these pi¿atas have preferences for what their environments, neighbors and food should be. If you meet the first set of requirements, perhaps by planting enough grass, you’ll see the pi¿ata walking around just outside the boundaries of your garden. Make your land a little more attractive and they’ll stop by for a visit. If they find what they were looking for, which could be anything from eating another pi¿ata to finding a certain type of flower, then they’ll take up residence.

Bare beginnings.Once a pi¿ata takes up residency, it changes from a black and white to the pastel blasted look that everyone associates with the party toys. When it does, you’ll find that each one has a unique personality. Certain pi¿atas just don’t get along with each other and will start fighting when they bump into each other. Others are friendlier and it isn’t uncommon to see one pi¿ata playfully chasing another around the garden in a squeak-filled game. Their personalities are strong enough that we often found ourselves attached to certain pi¿atas and unwilling to budge when it came to decisions involving their ultimate fate.

Convincing pi¿atas to take up residency isn’t the only interaction you can have with them. Each pi¿ata can be named, convinced to do the romance dance with another of its kind by meeting certain conditions to breed more pi¿atas, or dressed up with a wide variety of accessories. Or you can sell them for a profit or just beat them to death with your shovel. Since there isn’t really an end goal for Viva Pi¿ata, what you do with your garden and its inhabitants is completely up to you. This freedom makes it a guarantee that no two people will have the same garden as so much of the game is dependent on small actions, choices and random events. It also guarantees that you’ll have a unique experience every time you turn on the game. Although the world is vibrant and alive, it stays that way when you turn the system off so that you don’t come back to chaos.

There’s a ton to do in Viva Pi¿ata; so much that trying to describe everything here would make this review far too lengthy for its own good. Suffice it to say, the game is constantly filled with moments where you find something new to do and it keeps you fully occupied all of the time; there aren’t really many moments where you don’t know what to do next. The game encourages discovery as well through the leveling system. For every new action or goal you meet, you’ll be rewarded with experience points. As you level up, new things are introduced to add variety and flair to your garden and pi¿atas, ensuring that you’ll constantly find new things to see and do. Some pi¿atas only make an appearance when you’ve gained enough experience. Other things, such as objects to place in your garden, purchasable barnyard pi¿atas, and accessories have a list that expands in scope as you progress through levels.

Gardening can get expensive.This discovery is made even more fun thanks to the nice graphics and the style with which the pi¿atas have been infused. Although the area that you can explore is limited to your garden, you’ll find that everything is animated and full of life. Trees and flowers grow before your eyes as various pi¿atas use them as hiding places and the pi¿atas themselves all run around and behave comically. Just watching the Barkbark run around with his tongue hanging out is enough to crack us up. Say what you will about the classic Rare bubble-eyed cuddly design, but it works in a game like Viva Pinata. Unfortunately, the engine chugs everytime the game autosaves, which occurs frequently. It only lasts a moment, but it happens often enough to jolt you out of the experience.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next
  

October 30, 2007 –
Earlier this year Microsoft dropped what many considered to be the biggest bomb of 2007 at the Electronics Entertainment Expo, otherwise known as E3, in Santa Monica, California. What was the earth shattering announcement, you ask? Well, it came during Microsoft’s press conference, the few hours during the show when every eye would be on the Xbox 360, and the Big M chose that window of time to show the world, for the very first time, Viva Pinata: Party Animals.

Essentially Party Animals is a family-based spin-off of Rare’s surprisingly solid strategy game that released late last year. While Rare’s creation certainly turned the heads of both old and young gamers alike, Party Animals is clearly geared towards a more youthful sect of gamers with its run of the mill gameplay that fails at replicating a sort of Mario Kart mixed with Fuzion Frenzy concoction.

Horstachio at her best.


Up to four players, either offline or on Xbox Live, can participate in a short, medium, or long tournament of events that mix races and mini-games together to establish the all-important point standings that determine the overall winner. Races are broken up by a predetermined set of mini-games, but there’s no way to choose which of these diversions you want to partake in. The game just sort of throws them at you randomly. There are six core types of mini-games and several variants that spin off from them, though it’s all too clear which game type you’re playing when a new competition starts up. A few of them will be enjoyable for those under the age of seven, but if you’re any older than that there’s absolutely no challenge to be found within Party Animals.

The inherent problem that really bogs down the action in Viva Pinata’s aesthetic successor is that the mini-games simply don’t stem from a fun design scheme. The ones that are enjoyable are almost direct copies of other games that can be found within Fuzion Frenzy 1 or 2 while other games seem to be regurgitated over and over with small additives to try and pass them off as new.

The racing provides a bit more entertainment value, but the limited number of seven core tracks – again, there are slight variations on these as well – wind up getting stale in a hurry. The different weapon types (two can be carried at any one time) have fairly standard effects on other characters. Some will derail them totally, others will slow them down, and then there are the classic boost items that need to be used strategically to win a race. Or at least, they’re supposed to be used strategically. In all of my time with the game I never once lost a race, no matter how I used the power ups and regardless of whether I had the option to “Keep the game close” turned on or off. Indeed, achievement point whores will love Viva Pinata: Party Animals.

The game’s strongest points are in both graphical and sound design, but that’s more to do with the fact that Rare essentially shipped Krome (the developer behind Party Animals) all of their assets from the original Viva Pinata as reference. Each of the eight characters, as well as the announcer, also feature some nice personality delivered through comical — albeit child oriented — dialogue.

Closing Comments
To reiterate the reoccurring theme of this review: If you have a child under the age of seven then chances are you

September 2, 2008 –
In 2006, Microsoft development studio Rare surprised everyone when it delivered the innovative Viva Piñata as an Xbox 360 exclusive. With its colorful critters, surprisingly deep gameplay and near universal appeal, Viva Piñata was a virtual pet game, a complex simulation and a whimsical children’s title all wrapped up in one paper-maché package.

Viva was a successful first visit to Piñata Island, but there were a few things fans felt were missing from the original that Rare wanted to address with a follow-up. The result is Viva Piñata : Trouble in Paradise, a sequel of sorts that provides a nearly identical experience to that of its predecessor with a few new features thrown in to make it even better.

Like so many great videogames, the premise of the Viva Piñata series is both simple and ridiculous. You’re a gardener given a square plot of ground to shape however you see fit, and your efforts are rewarded by the arrival of colorful piñata animals. Once in motion, this bizarre ecosystem grows in complexity until the loveable Bunnycombs you grew a special patch of carrots for are being hungrily stalked by predatory Pretztails, who break your bunnies open and devour the candy inside. Just like the brutal dog-eat-dog world of real gardening.

Get to know your piñatas’ likes and dislikes and you’ll soon have a garden full of them to do with as you please. Each piñata has requirements for visiting and taking up residence in your little plot. For example, Squazzils have an eye for hazelnuts, and Doenuts prefer tall grass. As you plant things, decorate your garden and raise piñatas, you’ll level up and increase both the size of your garden and the amount of tools and toys at your disposal. Make your piñatas happy and you can get them to “romance,” which magically produces a baby piñata if everything goes to plan.

That’s the way things worked in Viva Piñata, and it’s exactly the same this go-round. There’s a more fleshed-out storyline this time (the database of piñatas has been wiped out and it’s up to you to restore it), but it’s largely in the background. The engine is the same, the helper-characters are the same, and all the original piñatas are back. But with 32 new species to attract and two new areas to explore, there’s more to like in Trouble in Paradise. By clicking on signposts at the edges of your main garden, you’ll be transported to either the sandy Dessert Desert or the ice-cold Piñarctic, two new environments where many of the new creatures can be found.

Once there, you’ll see various critters wandering around ready to be trapped. Choose a trap, buy some bait and watch the poor curious suckers stroll up to check things out. Spring your trap, and if you’re lucky you’ll soon have a Pengum, Flapyak or Vulchurro to call your very own. And although you can’t turn either extreme area into a satellite garden, you can bring elements of both into your main garden. As you gain more experience and level up, you’ll gain access to ice and sand and can turn sections of your garden into homes away from home for your captured animals.

As with much of the Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise experience, snaring innocent piñatas and spiriting them away to your personal menagerie feels a bit wrong, but it’s addictive and oddly satisfying too. That’s because the piñatas in Trouble in Paradise are so damned cute that you just can’t help but covet them. Seeing a particularly picky piñata wandering at the edges of your garden, refusing to enter unless you meet its stringent requirements, can be a great motivator to finally get that row of gooseberry bushes planted.

• 1
• 2
• Next
  

October 30, 2007 –
Earlier this year Microsoft dropped what many considered to be the biggest bomb of 2007 at the Electronics Entertainment Expo, otherwise known as E3, in Santa Monica, California. What was the earth shattering announcement, you ask? Well, it came during Microsoft’s press conference, the few hours during the show when every eye would be on the Xbox 360, and the Big M chose that window of time to show the world, for the very first time, Viva Pinata: Party Animals.

Essentially Party Animals is a family-based spin-off of Rare’s surprisingly solid strategy game that released late last year. While Rare’s creation certainly turned the heads of both old and young gamers alike, Party Animals is clearly geared towards a more youthful sect of gamers with its run of the mill gameplay that fails at replicating a sort of Mario Kart mixed with Fuzion Frenzy concoction.

Horstachio at her best.


Up to four players, either offline or on Xbox Live, can participate in a short, medium, or long tournament of events that mix races and mini-games together to establish the all-important point standings that determine the overall winner. Races are broken up by a predetermined set of mini-games, but there’s no way to choose which of these diversions you want to partake in. The game just sort of throws them at you randomly. There are six core types of mini-games and several variants that spin off from them, though it’s all too clear which game type you’re playing when a new competition starts up. A few of them will be enjoyable for those under the age of seven, but if you’re any older than that there’s absolutely no challenge to be found within Party Animals.

The inherent problem that really bogs down the action in Viva Pinata’s aesthetic successor is that the mini-games simply don’t stem from a fun design scheme. The ones that are enjoyable are almost direct copies of other games that can be found within Fuzion Frenzy 1 or 2 while other games seem to be regurgitated over and over with small additives to try and pass them off as new.

The racing provides a bit more entertainment value, but the limited number of seven core tracks – again, there are slight variations on these as well – wind up getting stale in a hurry. The different weapon types (two can be carried at any one time) have fairly standard effects on other characters. Some will derail them totally, others will slow them down, and then there are the classic boost items that need to be used strategically to win a race. Or at least, they’re supposed to be used strategically. In all of my time with the game I never once lost a race, no matter how I used the power ups and regardless of whether I had the option to “Keep the game close” turned on or off. Indeed, achievement point whores will love Viva Pinata: Party Animals.

The game’s strongest points are in both graphical and sound design, but that’s more to do with the fact that Rare essentially shipped Krome (the developer behind Party Animals) all of their assets from the original Viva Pinata as reference. Each of the eight characters, as well as the announcer, also feature some nice personality delivered through comical — albeit child oriented — dialogue.

Closing Comments
To reiterate the reoccurring theme of this review: If you have a child under the age of seven then chances are you

November 10, 2006 –
Viva Pi¿ata has an undeniable charm to it. The game is squarely aimed at a younger demographic with cuddly pi¿atas that inhabit the land and cartoonish character-style and voices. Yet, the game design hits at something that can’t be outgrown: the joy of discovery. That is, perhaps, the best way to describe Rare’s new gem.

Viva Pi¿ata also culls from so many different ideas that it is hard to succinctly explain what the point of the game is. The English developer’s elaborately woven and complex endeavor brings great depth to the normally pallid kid genre, and that’s part of what makes Viva Pi¿ata such a great game. Despite ample room for improvement, this is easily one of the best titles, if not the best, Rare game since Microsoft bought it in 2002.

Part The Sims, part Animal Crossing and part resource management strategy, Viva Pi¿ata stands alone as a deep and engaging title on Xbox 360, fully accessible to people of all ages. To describe the game, we’ll start from the beginning. The game kicks off by providing you with a junk-riddled patch of packed soil and tasks you with shaping the land using a shovel. The point? To attract living pi¿atas, each with chuckle-inducing names that are all candy and sweet-themed takes on their animal likeness, in hopes of convincing them to take up residency. Like real-life animals, these pi¿atas have preferences for what their environments, neighbors and food should be. If you meet the first set of requirements, perhaps by planting enough grass, you’ll see the pi¿ata walking around just outside the boundaries of your garden. Make your land a little more attractive and they’ll stop by for a visit. If they find what they were looking for, which could be anything from eating another pi¿ata to finding a certain type of flower, then they’ll take up residence.

Bare beginnings.Once a pi¿ata takes up residency, it changes from a black and white to the pastel blasted look that everyone associates with the party toys. When it does, you’ll find that each one has a unique personality. Certain pi¿atas just don’t get along with each other and will start fighting when they bump into each other. Others are friendlier and it isn’t uncommon to see one pi¿ata playfully chasing another around the garden in a squeak-filled game. Their personalities are strong enough that we often found ourselves attached to certain pi¿atas and unwilling to budge when it came to decisions involving their ultimate fate.

Convincing pi¿atas to take up residency isn’t the only interaction you can have with them. Each pi¿ata can be named, convinced to do the romance dance with another of its kind by meeting certain conditions to breed more pi¿atas, or dressed up with a wide variety of accessories. Or you can sell them for a profit or just beat them to death with your shovel. Since there isn’t really an end goal for Viva Pi¿ata, what you do with your garden and its inhabitants is completely up to you. This freedom makes it a guarantee that no two people will have the same garden as so much of the game is dependent on small actions, choices and random events. It also guarantees that you’ll have a unique experience every time you turn on the game. Although the world is vibrant and alive, it stays that way when you turn the system off so that you don’t come back to chaos.

There’s a ton to do in Viva Pi¿ata; so much that trying to describe everything here would make this review far too lengthy for its own good. Suffice it to say, the game is constantly filled with moments where you find something new to do and it keeps you fully occupied all of the time; there aren’t really many moments where you don’t know what to do next. The game encourages discovery as well through the leveling system. For every new action or goal you meet, you’ll be rewarded with experience points. As you level up, new things are introduced to add variety and flair to your garden and pi¿atas, ensuring that you’ll constantly find new things to see and do. Some pi¿atas only make an appearance when you’ve gained enough experience. Other things, such as objects to place in your garden, purchasable barnyard pi¿atas, and accessories have a list that expands in scope as you progress through levels.

Gardening can get expensive.This discovery is made even more fun thanks to the nice graphics and the style with which the pi¿atas have been infused. Although the area that you can explore is limited to your garden, you’ll find that everything is animated and full of life. Trees and flowers grow before your eyes as various pi¿atas use them as hiding places and the pi¿atas themselves all run around and behave comically. Just watching the Barkbark run around with his tongue hanging out is enough to crack us up. Say what you will about the classic Rare bubble-eyed cuddly design, but it works in a game like Viva Pinata. Unfortunately, the engine chugs everytime the game autosaves, which occurs frequently. It only lasts a moment, but it happens often enough to jolt you out of the experience.

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