Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise (Xbox 360)

.../> == History of the Viva Piñata game(s) ==

Made by 'Microsoft Game Studios,' this company has an expansive history, a company that since 2002 has been a fully owned subsidiary of the Microsoft corporation, has acquired many companies over its time.. Having obtained Bungie Studios into the 'Microsoft Game Studio' Microsoft then had the chance to alter Halo onto the Xbox platform.. (Which immensely pleased me and a lot of other people!) ...
...for the Xbox they also took over Rare Ltd in August of 2002 therefore allowing the 'Viva Piñata,' franchise to begin and for them to sell the games in mass amounts, to children and adults alike..

The original game 'Viva Piñata' was released on Xbox on the 9th of November 2006, to the mass market. The game was developed by Rare Ltd, based on an idea by creator Tim Stamper.. There were rumours about the first game for months before a ... more

When it comes to money now its hard pushed to get any extra to spend on yourself I am more than aware of the fact myself as I'm sure is the same for most people.. Especially now that dreaded season is underway.. Christmas drains you financially, this recession just piles on the problems..

Anyway so looking more on the bright side, when we do get a bit extra it is nice to be able to treat ourselves to something we enjoy.. Whether it be an extra night out with your friends or some expensive perfume you have wanted for ages.. For me it has to be a game for my Xbox 360.. I only had two games so I decided to treat myself to something different to play..

Considering the previous three games I had played had a lot of story behind them and more action than my brain could take the afternoon I bought this game.. So I bought this, 'Viva Piñata : Trouble In Paradise.' It just jumped out at me being brightly coloured and pretty with cute animals on the front..

Why did I buy it?

Other than the fact that it has a very cute cover with lots of piñata's and evil piñata's and the fact it was half price also attracted me to it.. At just £17.49, who could turn it down, well even better when I got to the till it was actually £17.13 due to VAT reduction.. Which is another bonus for the consumer, well a little bonus anyway..
It main thing that attracted me to it is that I had seen the original game played by my boyfriend and I did think it was quite fun even though it is a child's game..!
Who says you can't have a little child fun every now and again..!

History of the Viva Piñata game(s)

Made by 'Microsoft Game Studios,' this company has an expansive history, a company that since 2002 has been a fully owned subsidiary of the Microsoft corporation, has acquired many companies over its time.. Having obtained Bungie Studios into the 'Microsoft Game Studio' Microsoft then had the chance to alter Halo onto the Xbox platform.. (Which immensely pleased me and a lot of other people!)
However not only did they acquire Halo properly for the Xbox they also took over Rare Ltd in August of 2002 therefore allowing the 'Viva Piñata,' franchise to begin and for them to sell the games in mass amounts, to children and adults alike..

The original game 'Viva Piñata' was released on Xbox on the 9th of November 2006, to the mass market. The game was developed by Rare Ltd, based on an idea by creator Tim Stamper.. There were rumours about the first game for months before a release date was announced, and after being given a 'everyone' rating it was possible, to be played by children and casual game players alike.. The brightly coloured packaging was made for this attraction.. Well it seriously worked on me!

The game is similar to Sims and other creator based games, in that there is no real win or loose situation the game is totally dependant upon you to choose which tasks to undertake and which piñata's you want to mate and build houses for to keep in your garden..

The original game released initially for Xbox 360 was later released onto PC and onto Nintendo DS, with the new sequel on Xbox 360.. 'Viva Piñata : Trouble In Paradise,' which is the reason I am writing this review!

Plot of 'Viva Piñata : Trouble In Paradise'

I am going to give you a general idea of the plot of the game without ruining it for any of you that may be thinking of buying it..

For those of you who know the original game, then we have a friendly face visiting.. Well not so friendly actually.. For those of you who don't know the original game we have someone lovely called Professor Pester come again to reek havoc amongst the little piñata's of Piñata island..! Upon his return Professor Pester managed to ruin things for the little piñata's and all the files went missing therefore leading to the player having to rebuild them by, completing challenges and filling the piñata's with sweets and sending them to parties.. (Don't worry they return!!)

'Viva Piñata' controls

Sorry to bored you but everyone needs to know what the controls are before you play a game or things could go horribly wrong..

Y … Information about a piñata when you have highlighted it, so you can find out about what it likes to eat and how to get little ones in your garden..

X … Brings up your main menu, where you have a mixture of things to choose from such as the village, seeds and watering your plants.. (Essential thing I may add!!)

A … Select and action.. Basically if you have an option as with most games you use the A button to confirm it..

B … Discard or Cancel.. To take the highlight off something, when you have a seed for example, it can be dropped by pressing B or planted by pressing A..

Left Analogue Stick … Moves you around your garden..

Right Analogue Stick … Moves the camera around so you can see the whole of your garden..

Left and Right Bumper … Find a specific Piñata..

Left Trigger … Zoom out..

Right Trigger … Zoom In..

Your Garden Helpers

Leafos

…
Your first helper when you first arrive on the island with your new patch of garden and a penned animal.. This little lady is there to help you on your way with your new garden and is there when you upgrade a level in your garden.. She is always there to show you the way with your little piñata's especially when it comes to 'Romancing' your animals..

Seedos

…

A frequent visitor to your garden, you will see this little character popping up every now and again, usually with new seeds for you to take a peak at and plant in your garden.. Though he usually has seeds even before the islands shops so he is a good little character to befriend!! Even though he can be a little grumpy..

Jardiniero

…

A one time great gardener on Piñata Island, he is not willing to let anyone forget, and you will find him bouncing in onto your screen every once in a while.. Sometimes with a gift and other times just with a few tips for you.. Don't worry though you will know he's coming, the controller vibrates like mad when he does arrive..!

Storkos

…

The lady that brings your Piñata's their new little bundle of joy.. Well I say bundle I mean an egg delivered to you Piñata, from her safe hands.. You will see her flying over in her strange looking hot air balloon type vehicle..

Dastardos

…

An evil and feared figure from Piñata Island history, watch out if one of your Piñata's gets sick and is left without care, he will be around and once he has had his way with the Piñata (No pun intended!!), there is no going back.. Poor Piñata..!

Professor Pester

…

The evil one is back not satisfied with wiping the islands memory of all its animals but he and his Ruffians and out to ruin your time as a gardener, by blocking your animals and just make your life as difficult as possible..!

Game play and Menu's

When you open up your main screen there are a number of options.. If you do not have Xbox Live.. As I don't at the moment which is a pain, the options are somewhat limited.. However do not despair my Piñata lovers.. It is just as much fun playing your new own garden and visiting the other gardens across the island..

The options when you first put the disc in:..

Standard Mode - Which means you can play your own garden, creature your own families, and accept challenges from Langston to capture certain Piñata for parties..!

Just For Fun Mode - Which means users can literally jump into a garden and create, feed and look after Piñata's without having to look after the money.. However the actual game play means there is nothing for you to unlock, or any Xbox live features..

Contests - Meaning you can enter your Piñata's into X-factor style competitions, races and beauty competitions.. I warn you now watch out for crying Piñata's..!

The Piñata's

There are a quite a few different species of animals in Piñata Island, and the good thing is that they are all named different to the names we know them as, which is an added appeal.. They are all different colours to how they would be in the wild.. Despite this though they are really really cute..

In this new game there is around a 100 different Piñata's with normal animals and the sour ones, in the original game there was just 60 characters, the new game adds around another 30, including 4 new sour animals, which are mean and evil to your tame Piñata's..
The Piñata's, were meant in the original to eat everything, but in this game they are more suited to eating particular things which can be a reason they do tricks and you can make them learn the tricks so they can perform it on cue later on in the game..

I'll give you the names of a few.. See if you can work out what they are.. (Answers at the end..)

Bunnycomb..
Candary
Elephanilla
Flutterscotch
Mousemallow..

Ok so I didn't say it would be too difficult to guess!!!

=== Romancing Piñata's ==

Providing you have two of the same species of the same animal, and all of the requirements for Romancing, including the Piñata houses, built by Willy the Builder..! Once you have a house it is time to start romancing your animals.. Then you have Piñata's born in your garden rather than being attracted to your garden..! If you spot a pink heart over the Piñata's head, there is soon to be romance in the air.. Just as long as you have lots of space for the new arrivals, once Storkos arrives with the egg for your Piñata and your garden..!

The mini games that lead to your romancing tend to be a maze leading one of your Piñata's to the other and making them collect hearts proving to one another that they want each other.. The more hearts you collect, the more they love them.. Although there is problems along the way, in the space of Loathers, that Professor Pester has put in place to make romancing just that little bit more difficult..

=== Gardens ===

When you first start your own garden every garden is small but the more you work at your garden the bigger it gets.. The more animals you can get to your garden the more petals you can get the quicker you can 'level up' and get extras for your garden.. For the start you get a penned animal which is not a happy one because it is cooped up.. There are other garden types you can visit for challenges and you to bring in different animals to feed up their Candiosity so you can send them to parties across the world..!
Plus if it rains in your garden, you can see your garden become watered a lot, it also runs down the screen of the 'camera' where it just used to fade away on the original game..

You get plenty of garden tools for your garden, including a Shovel, which can be used for a manner of things, including digging holes, smashing the building work around your Piñata's houses, after your upgrade you can also dig a pond..!
In your menu there is also a Watering can, so you can water all your plants, and flowers, and seeds when they arrive.. However be careful you can over-water your plants..!
Surface packets.. Basically you can change the surface in which the majority of your Piñata's live in, you can get sand, grass and all sorts of different ones like water and ice so you can import some animals from the other worlds to keep them alive, fill them up and send them to Piñata parties..!

Services for your Garden

There are a bunch of local services you can use, to help your garden become more attractive to other species of Piñata.. So you can get more in your garden, increasing your level and different awards you can get for being a good gardener..
There are these services:..

Costolots Store - A place to pick up seeds and other goods for your garden.. Owner Lottie is happy to buy as well as sell. Highlight the items you wish to sell and sell them to Lottie, and make yourself some extra coins..

Paper Pets - Miss Petula stocks a range of Piñata's and accessories for them, to keep them happy and maybe even fill them up with candy.. For a party, anywhere across the planet..!

Post Office - Fanny is a helpful little shop keeper, who helps crate and transfer animals from place to place.. Especially over Xbox live where you can swap animals, to make your garden more full..

Willy Builder - The builder of all the houses for your Piñata and their babies, he is the only one that can build a private and comfortable home..

Bart's Exchange - Bart the tinker is around and happily turning one thing into another, however he is almost essential because his tinkered items are what some Piñata's must have, to romance..!

Trouble In Your Garden

Sour Piñata's - these Piñata's are evil, they come into your garden and cause no end of problems for your other Piñata's..! However they can be tamed, and maybe in the process you can gain yourself a new Piñata.. Even with sweets the sour Piñata's can be calmed down for a while, but you must find a way to get rid of them as soon as possible because they end up eating your plants and flowers!!

Professor Pester and his Ruffians - The Professor decides once again to cause havoc on the island with his merry little hooligans by his side.. Not satisfied with wiping the whole of the Piñata records, he and his merry men are out to make gardening on Piñata island as difficult as possible.. The Ruffians are little men in red masks.. Watch out for them as they come looking into your garden..!

Piñata's fight.. It shows a more volatile nature to the creatures but there is always going to be fights, but you can see eventually which species are liable to fight with each other, so you can look into separating them to prevent further fights.. If they do end up fighting however, there is always the option of a shovel or watering can to try and break it up!!

As always there are weeds, thistles and ivy to name two.. These are all potentially dangerous to your garden and your Piñata's.. Weeds can be useful for tinkering but don't let them over-run your garden just in case you need them!!

Other Lands

There are two other lands in amongst the island that you can visit.. To enable you trap and move Piñata's to your garden and therefore make sure you have more awards and level up your garden sooner..

We have two different lands, they are..

Desert Island,
and
Piñartic..

Both areas are full of new species that you haven't got in your own garden.. However the only thing you can do in these lands is trap and bait animals it is not possible to cultivate the land like you can your own garden.. Both the bait and traps can be bought from Langston, depending on the strength of your animals you may need a stronger and more expensive trap..
once set a trap you can wander off and leave your trap or you can wait and spring the trap yourself.. Either way the crate your animal may or may not be in is shipped to the post office where you can smash and release your animal into the garden.. To start its new life!!

Xbox Live Co-op

By using the Post office you can send Piñata's and seeds to your friends across live, from one Post Office to the next, although you do have to reach a certain level before you can trade animals and seeds through your Xbox Live..

You can also share gardens through Xbox Live, you can have up to four people raising a garden at a time, each player has a cursor and a set of tools, the experience level depends how many different Piñata's you get attracted to your garden.. Whoever owns the garden, can set the limit of who can and cannot enter their garden, visiting other peoples gardens gives you new levels of experience and gives you tips.. Also enabling you to keep up with friends!!

My Opinion

My actual plot itself is fairly simple, which I think is to do with the fact the game is made for little ones as well as us adults looking for something a little simpler to play, that doesn't tax too many brain cells at a time.. Which I know its definitely my downfall at the moment.. However the simplicity doesn't make it any less interesting, especially as you have the chance to be green fingered without getting your hands dirty.. I know games are meant to be bad for children but this saves Mum's and Dad's having to wash muddy clothes as much..!

The controls are easy to use, I didn't actually look at the booklet before I had a go with the game, having played Fable, Dead Space, Fallout, and Halo recently I figured the controls would be pretty easy to conquer! They are fairly basic although depending upon the age of your controller you may struggle to get round all the little petals on the flower of the menu, as my other halves controller is fairly old, so he tended to struggle a little bit, but with mine being fairly new I had no issue.. The fact that you can use the left and right bumper to find a specific Piñata is a great idea saves you hunting around your garden looking for it!

The little personalities which take a residence in your garden from time to time can be a mixture of a blessing and a curse.. Seedos I have found is pretty annoying at times because he gets in the way.. Unlike the Piñata's you cannot select him and direct him somewhere else.. Therefore you must wait for him to get out of the way..! Leafos is an average little person she is handy to have around when you first start but like Seedos, she can get in the way while you are trying to feed your Piñata's!

I play the standard mode the most because I really enjoy making myself a bigger garden, but the just for fun mode is funny because you don't need to worry about the money you have, you can just make your garden and ruin it in the same day if you want to, just because it is there to do so.. The contests are really funny , but the judges you pick can make your Piñata's cry..

The different Piñata's appear from everywhere, they pop up from the corners of your garden and wander in, making themselves at home.. Some of the names they have which some of them are similar to what we actually call them, but they are so sweet, even with their multi-coloured outsides, however they all look the same that's why you have to highlight them to find out which animal is which..

The gardens, change in size every few levels which is interesting as the larger your garden is the bigger amount of animals you can attract.. The garden can have so many animals at one time, with lots of plants and flowers however I made the fatal mistake of not watering one of my flowers.. So it died.. Whoops.. Leafos wasn't very happy with me!!

The Services in general are good, except the voice of the woman Lottie in the Costolot store is highly American and very annoying.. The only bad thing about these stores is the voices of the people that own them.. Even Storkos annoys me! The prices are always reasonable though.. Or at least I think they are.. Not sure of the exchange rate between out currency and Chocolate coins!!

The other lands are sooooooooo cute.. (Excuse the extra o's) there are penguins and robins.. I'm just going to ramble about how cute they are if I carry on.. So I won't..!

I haven't played the Xbox live but I have heard it is not too different to the normal game play, but still it is more interesting that you can share animals and seeds..!

Answers to my little Quiz

Bunny comb - bunny rabbit
Candary - canary
Elepanilla - elephant
Flutter scotch - butterfly
Mouse mallow - Mouse

Prices

Game station - £17.13..
Game - £24.99
Play.com - £24.99
Amazon - £24.99 

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