One fine day, Chienne the Newsbot decided she'd go and spend some time in her garden. Trusty battered shovel in hand, she stepped out to visit her small plot of land. Today, she thought, she would romance her Whirlms and see about making a Candary by feeding a buttercup to a Sparrowmint.

Breeding like Bunnycombs

Then, of course, there were more vegetables to plant, the apple and chestnut trees to keep an eye on, and that pesky Sour Sherbat had been popping up more frequently than she'd like. Chienne wasn't quite sure how to tame the Sherbat's evil cousin, but she'd find a way. Til then, it might just be a case of her usual method - beating the piñata with a shovel until it broke.

Upon arriving in the garden, Chienne the Newsbot waved a cheery hello to Sprinkling, a garden helper who struts through the garden watering the plants, and wandered over to the northern corner, where she dug a new pond. This would interest even more piñata to come visiting, and that would make Jardiniero, the original owner of the garden, happy. Chienne then had a chat with Seedos - who gave her a purple turnip seed, which she planted over by the Mothdrop house, a giant light globe containing two of the nocturnal piñata. Soon the turnip seed would grow into its adult form, when it would be eaten by a Mousemallow – enticing the little critter to stay in Chienne's plot.

Suddenly, Leafos (another garden helper) alerted Chienne to a fight between two piñata! A tame Taffly didn't like the look of the Bunnycomb that was hanging around the daisy patch, and had attacked it by throwing flyswatters! The Bunnycomb retaliated with a honeycomb attack, and quickly defeated the smaller Taffly, who started turning green! Chienne quickly contacted Doc Patchingo before Dastardos got wind of the injured piñata and came around with his big stick.



While wondering how to prevent such conflicts in future, Chienne wandered into the village to visit Costolot's store, to buy some new seeds, so she could plant a bigger daisy patch. She also took the time to visit Willy Builder (yes, he will!) and placed an order for a Shellybean house. After she chose a spot for the house, and Willy got to work, Chienne noticed it was getting dark. Doc Patchingo had been and gone, helping the sick piñata, Leafos and Seedos had gone home for the night, and Storkos had made her last egg delivery for the day. The Mothdrops had come out of their house and were fluttering around and the Pretztails were already prowling over by the apple tree, while the Sparrowmints and other daytime piñata had gone inside for the night. Chienne picked up her trusty shovel and made sure her garden torch was burning bright before she too, went home. Tomorrow was a new day on Piñata Island.

Sprinkling, the Helper. I called mine Yeats.

...and pretty much sums up Viva Piñata – every day is like that. It's very similar to The Sims, in terms of the fact you can play for hours and hours (and trust me, time flies in this game), and still find yourself no closer to "winning". Don't get me wrong – Viva Piñata is a wonderful game, but if you're playing with the aim of completing something other than Achievements and in-game rewards, you might be disappointed. It's very different to what you might expect – and that said, you'll probably find yourself enjoying it far more than you anticipated.

(By the way, in-game rewards are fairly frequent, to keep your attention. While playing, you can receive new shovels, new seeds, new piñata, new visitors, new shops in the village, new items in these shops... Then there are the Xbox Achievements doled out for simple things – having five species resident, growing five plants to maturity, making variant piñata, evolving piñata, even just reaching various levels within the game, or playing for a certain number of real-time hours.)

I first stumbled upon Viva Piñata while at the eGames and Entertainment Expo in Melbourne, late last year. It seemed that most of the Xbox 360 screens were showing the same game – full of bright colours and cartoon-like characters – and that this game was attracting an incredibly diverse audience – young kids, guys, girls, cosplayers, and gamers fresh from the Gears of War display tent. It looked like Microsoft had put most of their efforts going into the exhibition into promoting chainsaws and locusts, only to be surprised that the audience's real interest focussed more on shovels and paper animals, with everyone intent on creating the prettiest garden on the island.

This difference was highlighted by seeing one of the Xbox 360 employees, a big, tough manly guy, in his big, tough Gears of War t-shirt, helping out a girl who was taking the day off from primary school, carefully explaining what each button on the controller was for.

Romancing the Sherbat.

That's one of the beautiful things about this game. It can be enjoyed by everyone, and each person who plays gets something different out of it. A friend and I both played for a while and ended up with totally different gardens containing totally different piñata. The controls are simple enough that your 10 year old cousin can pick it up with no problems, but it's not dumbed down too far for a seasoned gamer to enjoy. I'm not a console gamer and initially found the Xbox 360 controller big and clunky, but the use of the joysticks and buttons is so intuitive that any issues I had quickly disappeared as I roamed my garden, planting grass, cleaning up rubbish and moving piñata around.

So what is it about Viva Piñata that makes it so popular? It's "just a kids' game", after all.

I read somewhere that the only way to understand what Viva Piñata is really about is to actually sit down and play the game – and they're right. For such a seemingly simple title, the levels of complexities within the game mean that any attempt at explanation or summary will fall short, and probably detract from the game itself. Viva Piñata teaches you how to play it, with a simple but detailed tutorial section at the beginning of the game, and an easy reference (the Journal) throughout. The in-game encyclopaedia was invaluable to me, constantly looking up what sort of piñata lived in my garden, what they liked to eat, and who they might fight with. The garden Helpers did just that – and answered the simple questions I asked. There's never a dull moment, which can get a little frenetic in later stages, but the learning curve is steeper than many games of this sort, and it never lost my attention.

Ohnoes! Dastardos!

It is worth pointing out that the game isn't perfect, however. The storyline feels a little tacked on, but may be a useful addition for younger players (for me, it wasn't necessary and I admit to not paying much attention to it). Some of the controls are "child-proof" and require several button-presses to complete a simple task such as selling a piñata or calling the doctor, which, again, may be a good thing for the kidlets in some instances. What can't be good for anyone, however, is that the auto-save and some of the loading sequences dragged a bit (before mini-games, Jardiniero announcements and visiting shops in the village) and made my machine clunk unhappily. An unexpected downside of this lag was that, while waiting, I'd inevitably glance at the clock and realise just how much of my time I had dedicated to the little papery beings. Not good for an immersive game where you shouldn't realise you've wasted all day until you suddenly notice it's dark outside.

Being so wrapped up in my own experience, I didn't get a chance to try out the whole Xbox Live side of things, but people I've spoken to have said it adds an extra, very exciting, element to an already pretty decent game. Putting it simply, if you know your buddy's code, you can send crates to them, containing chocolate coins, seeds, plants, and – of course – piñata (...either the good sort, or the evil Sour variant, just to trick them!).

Sparrowmints, bringing Romance Dance back.

Speaking from a technical perspective, I've got no complaints. The sound is lovely – 5.1 makes for lots of ambient background noise, and each of the piñata will have their own sound, which you can hear as they wander and play around the garden, sometimes even coming up behind you for a laugh. Controls are intuitive and simple to understand, and the menu system, while a little convoluted, gets you there in the end. One of the highlights of the game for me were the graphics – colourful, vibrant and well-rendered – perfect for what they are. You're not going to get amazing displays of 3d physics, with individually-animated dust particles, but that wouldn't belong on Piñata Island, anyway, and the developers have paid attention, instead, to making everything gorgeous, lush, and cartoon-like, a pleasure to watch and interact with. Not only are the characters great to look at, but you'll soon learn that several have particular quirks, and interact differently with other species.

As I mentioned, everyone who plays the game plays it differently. I was happy just seeing who popped in to my garden and wanted to hang around. Friends of mine, however, were a little more obsessive, breeding and improving one or two specimens so they were the brightest and best of their type. Another obsessively named each of her piñata and gave them personalities – which can lead to interesting situations when a larger, carnivorous species moves in to the garden... (I personally stopped getting so attached to mine when a Fudgehog came visiting and ate UgLyPuNk the Whirlm.)


I could go on for hours about this game. In a world where everything seems like a slight variation on something else, it's refreshing to have something that's so seemingly unique (comparisons to The Sims, Animal Crossing and Pokémon aside) – this game deserves the hype it's been getting, and should continue to get as time goes on. Rare, Microsoft, I tip my cap at you. This one's a keeper.