Viva fucking Pinata

Uh oh Spike, Septim agrees with you. Your confession has led to madness.

JS

I rented this game a week or two ago and had a decent time playing it, but I swear it was like every 30 seconds I was having some new creature enter my garden and being treated to a 15 second, un-skippable cut scene. I've since returned it as classes have started back and I don't want to get addicted to videogames during the semester, but I won't lie about enjoying it.

I just started playing this yesterday and I really don't hate it.

I find it to be quite enjoyable. Beating colorful animals with a shovel because they won'T EAT THE GODDAMN FROG, YOU SONOFABITCH! EAT IT! EAT IT! IT'S RIGHT THERE! NOW GET TO FUCKING, YOU PAPERMACHE MOTHERFUCKER! is fun. Or something approximating it. Plus the music is rather nice. I gave my bumblebees beekeeper hats. It gives me warm fuzzys, but with the sneaking suspicion that I'm a 10 year old girl.

This game is a time sink.

I hate those stupid sour pinatas with a passion. Especially the one that steals my eggs.

This is the Xbox 360's Animal Crossing.

Anyone get that stag to enter the garden? Fucker walks right up to the edge all the time, looks around, then won't commit.

I've got a ton of money and nothing to do with it. I've been blowing it all on decorations and shit.

All the money in the world won't make that fucking toad stick around for more than a couple seconds though. I need that toad. Everyone wants to eat it.

Your guys's descriptions of gameplay are pretty intriguing.

last EGM raved about this game, maybe i should check it out

By stags, do you mean Doenuts? Those WHORES need a lot of tall grass and to eat like 10 blueberris. But do they go towards the blueberries? NOOOOOooooooo. They like to fuck around near the pond. Maybe I'll clear a path to the middle of my pond, then moat the bitch in. Say, that might work.

At least when you get one Pinata to become a resident, you can go and pay the hunter to bring another one into your garden.

I need to figure out how I can grow some bulrushes so my Sweetooths can mate. I want to sell their babies to make some good profit.

Yeah, those things. I have yet to plant any tall grass, will give it a try, thanks.

After PDZ and Kameo (both decent games but not the best) I'm waiting on a price drop for Viva.I just don't trust RARE anymore to buy one of their games at full price without playing it first.And this doesn't seem like the kind of game you can get the most out of in a rental.

You probably mean difficult to play well. A friend of mine whose kid has the game tells me that she loves trying to attract and interact with critters, and isn't necessarily playing the game "correctly".

Exactly. You don't need to do much of anything. You can get a pretty large amount of animals in the garden without all the micro-managment to keep things running smoothly. Hell, I never water any of my plants, just let them grow, flower, attract whatever animal likes them, and let them die off.

This game is a blackhole. Was only planning to play for half an hour and ended up spending 3 hours tooling around with my garden. Kind of chaotic with all the things loitering around my yard.

Highlights:

-My first whirm, Oh Dae-su, spawned a baby whirm named Mido. I'm sure you know what happened after that.
-A rabbit Pinata, Steve Buscemi, got eaten while I wasn't paying attention.
-If I could I wish the store owner would take a walk around my garden. That's one bitchy npc.

If you're tired of hearing the store owner bitch, pay the bum/hermit that shows up a lot of your money and he'll set up a store of his own in competition with the bitchy character.

Bump.

I just put this game in last night, after it had been sitting on my shelf for several weeks. I played it for something like six hours. It's evil addictive. I'm no stranger to girlie/kiddie games, so I don't exactly feel shame about it. At the same time, I have to wonder why it took a developer making a game for kids to perfect the sandbox formula. This beats the holy hell out of Rollercoaster Tycoon.

I am having some trouble working out the food chain business. Is there a good web resource for this? I was also having a lot of trouble with fights breaking out for a while. Is there some way to cut down on it?

I've been told Pinata Island is a place to go for any info on playing the game. Haven't checked out the site myself, but was sent this link by co-workers.

This game sounds really cool, like a crazy version of Harvest Moon. Too bad I don't plan to get a Xbox 360 anytime soon.

Excellent. That looks very thorough. Thanks.
You're missing out. The 360 not only has the best gaming going right now, but the online community aspect is great. It's something no other console has.

They are making a new version for the DS. I hope this means that Wii will be getting it. After I bought my Wii I heard about this game while getting back into games. I am now a 9am Saturday morning devotee of the cartoon. Wish I still did drugs though.

Viva Pinata is published by Microsoft Game Studios. I'd expect a Wii port around the same time as Bush's impeachment trial.

I felt the same way until they announced the DS version.

A handheld version is a whole different animal, though. It clearly won't be the full game, just a midget variant on it. Publishers have historically not had the same aversion to shaking hands with the enemy when it comes to handhelds. If Microsoft had their own handheld system, you wouldn't be seeing a DS version either.

Actually Rare claims it *is* the entire game and then some, minus four or five hundred lines of resolution.

But yes, the only reason it is showing up on a handheld is because Microsoft doesn't have a dog in that race.

I'd be willing to say that MS is all about the Benjamins and now that Nintendo has a capable system (i.e. NOT the Cube) that games start coming over to the Wii.

It has nothing to do with how capable the systems are. In-house game publishers do not port their games to competitor's systems. No matter how many 360's there are in the world, you're never going to see Nintendo making Mario and Zelda games for the 360, and the reverse is just as true. Porting their games to other systems would be an admission of defeat in the console war.

Another example, there were no Sonic games on Nintendo consoles until Sega had given up on the console market. Before that happened, the idea of Mario or Sonic on the rival console was unthinkable.

I will be first to admit being a gaming newbie as I owned an N64 and sold it in '99 and didn't look at the game world until Black Friday when I happened upon my Wii whilst people watching at Wal-Mart at 3am.

However, from what I have read this year alone exclusivity seems to be going tits up and I am left to wonder how far behind non-marquee in-house games are? I will agree with you that Halo, Mario, Link, Metroid and I am struggling to come up with one for PS will never make the leap. But Viva Pinata? It apparently sucked balls in the sales figures even though it is this critically lauded game. I see the step to the DS as a possible step to the Wii for a game that could really benefit in the sales dept. from doing so.

Despite all their efforts, Nintendo still is having to fight an uphill battle against the idea of "kiddie console". Despite trying to shed this image, Viva Pinata would appeal to many of Nintendo's core. When MS sees the sales figures for the DS I am willing to bet the game jumps to the Wii.

Myself? I don't own a DS, but you better believe the day this game hits the shelves it will be paid for right next to a brand spankin' new, shiny black DS for the sole purpose of playing Viva Pinata.

I see where you are coming from but I happen to have this notion that MS just wants your money and will send lesser known, sales slumped games such as this where they need to go to make them some more.

I'm willing to bet that you're wrong. Time will tell, obviously, but for an in-house game publisher to port a game to a competitor's console would represent a major quantum shift in their thinking, and would constitute groundbreaking news. Don't be so willing to bet on it.

You say that all Microsoft cares about is money, but you're thinking in the short term. In the long term, there's more money to be made in winning the console war. They're not going to do that by giving away titles to the competition. And Microsoft is nothing if not long-term thinkers. They're going for strategy, not tactics.

Besides, they clearly haven't given up on Viva Pinata as a franchise yet. They have more games coming up, and that probably means they're not yet willing to dump it on to other consoles for a quick buck.

And by the way, the Wii isn't even all that capable a system. Its graphics are only slightly better than the Gamecube's. I own both a Wii and a 360, and the comparison is stark. There's no way the Wii could even run this game as it stands. It would take some serious downgrading.

My apologies, I meant capable from a powerhouse sales POV.

I can readily admit that the Wii is woefully underpowered yet makes up for it in the neighborhood of 60-75% with innovative gameplay. However, unless Wii 2.0(which I am hoping will be the colored versions, I damn sure want a green one) is PS2+ or XBox level in the graphics department I think Nintendo will have a problem silencing a few people.