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Viva Pinata (360)

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    Viva Pinata (360)

    Been giving this a bash for the last half an hour.
    me likey. I'm mid handholding period so far, but from what I can gather is the game works like this.

    You tend to your garden with a shovel which can clear grass, dig up soil and smash junk objects .A Pinata will appear in black and white and roam across your land, this little beast needs attracting to come and live in your plot of land.

    You can select the Pinata and see what his requirements are i.e. Have a small area of grass. There are various different objectives you must fulful for him to come and live here.
    Once one kind of pinata appears another predatory Pinata will appear who wants to have a munch on the smaller guys. The Chain continues...

    Much to my suprise you don't actually control a character as I thought you did, you are pretty much a floating cursor. The Talking Characters have do have crappy voices. I' hoping once I'm done with the tutorials they keep their mouths close.

    Humanoid characters appear such as Willy, who is the man responisible for building housing and other structures you need to play the game.


    The visuals are stunning, this is by far the smoothest game I have EVER seen, RARE must of Cranked up Anti-Aliasing and turned on every filter under the game. It truly looks stunning, in the background I can see what looks like a town, it could easily be out of shrek , there are also some tree huts that look just as good as I remember Donkey Kong Country looking like.

    #2
    I must admit that I'm intrigued by this game but know very little about it - what level of interactivity do you have with Pinata?

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      #3
      You can hit them with a shovel and direct them towards something i.e. their house or another randy pinata.

      I'm not sure how much of a Kids game this is but so far I have come across 2 characters :

      Willy Builder and Fannie Franker ....
      Call me immature but ?!? wtf

      Also there seems to be a story involving a character and his wife who he calls mother...

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        #4
        Have any Sours turned up yet? How do thoses mechanics work, repelling them from your garden and such...

        EDIT: when you say "predatory" Pinatas arrive, are they the Sours? I thought "nice" Pinata didn't prey on each other (at least, from what the cartoon has brainwashed me with, filledwithfun, filledwithfun)

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          #5
          You say its smooth.. last time I saw it , it was running at about 20fps ? Have they fixed the framerate or something ?

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            #6
            Originally posted by anephric
            Have any Sours turned up yet? How do thoses mechanics work, repelling them from your garden and such...

            EDIT: when you say "predatory" Pinatas arrive, are they the Sours? I thought "nice" Pinata didn't prey on each other (at least, from what the cartoon has brainwashed me with, filledwithfun, filledwithfun)
            There is a basic food chain, you can direct another pinata to eat another smaller kind.

            I haven't got too far yet, I'm just trying to grasp the basics, I seem to have lots of pinatas roaming around but not have the means to fulfil their needs.

            The framerate is perfect now, admittedly not much is going on , but it is silky smooth.

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              #7
              They don't eat each other in the cartoon. I'm shocked. They're all friends and stuff. Mummy, what's that pinata doing to that other pinata.

              You can make pinata sneeze/sick, though, and get other pinata to eat their candified snot/vom. I'm assuming that's a gameplay mechanic in the game proper, since they dedicated an entire episode to it.

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                #8
                They don't technically eat each other, but instead shoot out a pinata yoga fireball which cause the other to explode, they then consume the sugery sweet flesh within.

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                  #9
                  Is this a US version of the game? Or an early PAL promo?

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                    #10
                    Tis the Us one

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                      #11
                      I played this solidly for about 3 hours last night, something is wrong. The handholding seemed to stop without a moments notice, leaving me floudering and not knowing what the heck I should be doing!

                      I've got a tiny plot of land filled with too many pinatas and they constantly fight!
                      It has gone from structured beauty to broken mess.
                      I need to play it some more and see if it smooths out again

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                        #12
                        I heard them talk about that moment on 1Up Yours, but they put a positive spin on things, saying it teaches you the basics but lets you figure out the rest on your own.

                        Let us know how it goes...I'm extremely tempted to get this!

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                          #13
                          I'll play it some more tonight and hopefully things will sort themselves out.
                          I still haven't worked out the best way to raise money other than selling those little bastard hedgehogs.

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                            #14
                            Yeah, I played this for a few hours last night too. Really loving it so far.

                            At first when I was when I was helping my kids play I thought it was a bit meh tbh and sickeningly cute but it really does grow on you. As you say there is a lot of handholding at 1st (too much tbh) and then it just kind of drops you in the poop with little help & things going a bit manic. Quite surprising how much trial & error is needed considering the wider audience it's aiming for.

                            I know what you mean about the garden filling up pretty quickly & I was starting to wonder where the hell things were gonna go.

                            Fortunately as you progress the size of your garden increases too & you can hire helpers to do the more 'menial' tasks. Thoroughly enjoying creating my own ponds etc.!



                            Early on it seems pretty hard to generate much cash but judging by some of the scores on the leaderboards you must be able to start raking it in as the game progresses. When I'm a bit richer I'll try & get Fannie to send you a nice gift!

                            I'm really liking the fact that Pinata, seeds, upgrades, sours etc. are gradually introduced as your gardening skills improve. Should help a lot with the longevity. Probably just me but this game seems like the bastard love child of Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon and Command & Conquer (with a touch of the Samba De Amigo colour palette thrown in)!!! A nice return to form from Rare & great to see them push the envelope a bit.

                            I was a bit sceptical about this game but now I reckon it's gonna eat the hours. I'm seriously contemplating holding off starting GoW for week or so to really get stuck into this.... (or at least playing both in tandem).
                            Last edited by tom-nook; 14-11-2006, 11:11.

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                              #15
                              im playing both in tandem. An act of GOW per night, and a couple of hours of Viva per night.

                              started this last night, will save my lengthier impressions for another site, but am very impressed and I can see this game totally appealing to the Japanese market.

                              tho I was a bit gutted having to force my to birds to each kill a whirlm so i could SEX THOSE ****ERS UP!

                              and i spotted a sour at night, i damn well near battered 9 shade of penny sweets out of him with my shovel.


                              FILLED WITH FUN!

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