Game Review: Viva Pinata (Xbox 360)

Viva Pinata
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Rare
Genre: Life Simulation
Players: 1-2



At first glance, Viva Pinata may come off as a kids game, or even a girls game. In reality it is a game that people off all ages can enjoy! For those unfamiliar with Viva Pinata, the game is similar to Animal Crossing. The purpose of the game is to built your garden and attract various Pinata's to the garden by fullfilling various requirments.



The game is controlled through a cursor in a "first person" sense. The gameplay is built for a PC, but it works remarkably well on the Xbox 360. You must build your garden from scratch using various tools at your disposal, later on in the game you will unlock shops that will allow you to buy ornaments, clothing, etc for your garden. Once you attract Pinata's you have the opportunity to breed them by filling certain requirments, once you have enough of one species, you will have the opportunity to send them to parties, or to sell them at the local shops for choclate coins.



The graphics are beautiful, although my only complaint was the frame rate drop when the game decides to auto save. It is miniscule and really dosen't hurt the game play any.



The audio is beautiful, the sound track is amazing like all the audio coming from Rare! The Dolby mix is remarkable and helps compement the game greatly.



Their is a ton of replay value in this game, no two play throughs will be a mirror experince, along with the saying that no two gardens will be alike.



I highly recommend you pick this game up, sadly it is in many bargin bins now.



I though this review would be timely since the sequel was announced this morning for a September release date, I'm suprised how nothing gets leaked from Rare now a days!