Viva Piñata
File:Viva pinyata.jpg
Developer(s)	Rare Ltd. (Xbox 360) Climax Group (PC Port)
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Game Studios
Platform(s)	Xbox 360, Games For Windows
Release	Xbox 360 November 92006 November 292006 December 12006 December 12006 January 112007 Games for Windows November 62007
Genre(s)	Simulation
Mode(s)	Single player

Viva Piñata is a simulation game developed by Rare Ltd., for the Microsoft Xbox 360 video game console. The project was headed by Gregg "The Grim Reaper" Mayles and the team behind the Banjo-Kazooie series, based on an idea from Tim Stamper.^[1] Although rumors of the title circulated among fans for some time, Viva Piñata was officially announced on March 15, 2006, and first released in November, 2006. With a "general audiences" or "everyone" rating, the game provides bright, colorful visuals, intended to appeal to children and adults alike.^{[citation needed]} At E3 2007, during the Microsoft press conference, a Games For Windows version of the game was announced. A Nintendo DS version has also been announced.

Gameplay

Likened to The Sims, Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon,^[2] the game tasks the player with turning a neglected plot of land into a beautiful garden. As with many sandbox games, the game is open-ended, with no strict winning or losing requirements. Instead, players are guided only generally towards the objectives of increasing their garden's value and attracting piñata residents. Players are free to determine their own sub-goals and work towards them.

Developing a successful garden requires setting up the land and foliage appropriately to attract piñatas, as well as purchasing various items to place within the garden (e.g., homes for the piñatas). When certain requirements are fulfilled, the garden will attract a simple black-and-white version of a given piñata species. After fulfilling additional requirements, the piñata will become a resident, changing into a full-color version. Once two piñatas of the same species are residents and their mating (romance) requirements are met, they can perform a romance dance, resulting in a baby piñata egg. No piñata has a gender specific design, and hence any two piñatas of the same species can mate (with some hidden inter-species romances possible as well).

When piñatas get together to mate, a maze-navigation minigame is initiated. Completing the mating minigame successfully will result in the creation of a new piñata offspring. For species encountered early in the game, the minigames are simple, but as the game progresses, minigames become increasingly difficult. The difficulty also increases as more members of a given species are resident, so that players have fewer lives (in the minigame) for each piñata of that type already in the garden.

In addition to looking after the needs of their piñatas, players must also watch out for Ruffians and sour piñatas, who enter the garden with the sole intent of wreaking havoc. Their mischief includes eating fruits or vegetables, destroying objects, or causing resident piñatas to become ill. If the player is resourceful, sour piñatas can, however, be won over and turned into productive garden residents. Additionally, players can earn or purchase individual parts of a totem-pole like structure known as the "Tower of Sour" to deter the type of sour piñata each part corresponds to. Different parts of this become available as the player completes certain requirements. In order to keep out Ruffians (and their leader, Professor Pester), players can purchase a "Captain's Cutlass" from one of the merchants.

Each piñata which is a resident of the garden can be customized as the player sees fit. Customization options include:

• The name of the piñata.
• The piñata's decorative tag (which stays with it, wherever it goes).
• Unlockable accessories the player can purchase for their piñata, ranging from hats, to backpacks, to large teeth. These accessories can increase a piñata's value, or can grant the piñata additional abilities.

Customizations, including accessories, are lost if a piñata is broken (Viva Piñata's version of death) for any reason, including being eaten by another piñata, being hit with a shovel, or after being sick for too long.

Xbox Live

The game supports Xbox Live/Games for Windows Live, but currently does so in a strictly non-interactive fashion. It also includes a safety video for children and parents, explaining potential issues with using the service.

While the game supports leaderboards and score comparisons, the existing primary use of Xbox Live is to allow players to send presents to friends. Piñatas, sour piñatas, and other items can all be packaged up and shipped off to other users. The contents of the box are unknown by the recipient until it is opened, at which time the contents emerge into the garden of their new owner.

Lastly, players can use the Xbox Live Marketplace to download several Viva Piñata related items. These include accessory packs and an interactive video which acts as a brief tutorial for the game. During the video, the user can decide which piñata that they would like to walk them through the features of the game. Xbox Live members can also download several episodes of the television series from the Xbox Live Marketplace, with the precise number available varying by locale. These episodes are available in both standard-definition and high-definition for no charge.

Piñatas

The game features a wide variety of different piñata types (roughly 60 in total), in most cases inspired by real-world animals. The names of the piñata species appear to have been generated by combining an animal name or sound with that of a food or candy, producing creatures such as "Buzzlegums" or "Sparrowmints". The species include both wild and domestic animal types, with the latter being purchased rather than simply appearing.

Some of the characters are piñatavores, and must eat other piñatas in order to become residents or reproduce. An intricate food chain (referred to as the doughnut of life^[3]) exists, with each piñata species having one or two others that it considers prey. Fortunately, once piñatas are residents, they will not eat each other unless instructed to do so by the player, although fights can still break out between residents who do not share the predator-prey relationship.

With some exceptions, piñatas each have three different appearance or coloration variants. These variants can be produced by fulfilling certain requirements in the game. For example, a given piñata species may be able to change from its default color to a yellow color by eating a sunflower. Additionally, certain piñatas can evolve into other species altogether, e.g., when a Horstachio eats blackberries and daisies, it turns into a Zumbug.

The title also includes "wild card piñatas", which are rare piñatas that appear randomly and infrequently following standard romancing. Wild card piñatas have a slightly different appearance than the standard member of the species, such as a curved tail. They also have are worth 10x the standard coin value, thus making them quite valuable.

It is also possible to trade piñatas over Xbox Live. Either a free silver account or paid gold account can be used, opening this option to a large number of Xbox 360 gamers.

Special Edition

A "Special Edition" of the game was released with a unique box. Everything except the backdrop of the Horstachio is part of a plastic sleeve. A separate disk includes the following bonus content:

• A playable demo of LucasArts' Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy.
• A playable demo of the arcade classic Frogger, enhanced and reinvigorated for the Xbox 360.
• A Time Pilot demo, allowing gamers to fly a futuristic fighter jet with the ability to travel through time against wave after wave of enemies.
• A return to AstroLab for a playable demo of Marble Blast Ultra, where players guide their marbles through a landscape of moving platforms and perilous obstacles.
• A sneak peek at the animated TV series, produced by 4Kids Entertainment & Bardel Entertainment.

Development

The original concept for the game began as Your Garden in 2002, and eventually evolved into the colorful world of Viva Piñata. According to interviews with Rare by Eurogamer TV and others, the game was originally designed for the Pocket PC platform.^[4] After Rare's acquisition by Microsoft, the title was then moved to the Xbox video game system before finally being developed for the Xbox 360 video game system. At various times, more than 50 different people contributed to the project.^[5]

During development, Microsoft and Rare realized the growing popularity of the project and began searching for licensing partners; they eventually teamed up with 4Kids Entertainment. As a result, in addition to being a video game on Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, it is also a computer-animated television series produced by 4Kids Entertainment.^[6] The show began airing on 4Kids TV on August 26 2006, on Canada's YTV on September 9 2006, and on the UK's Nick Toons on March 5 2007. Animation for the television series is done at Bardel Entertainment in Vancouver, Canada. Recently, the show began airing on ITV2 in the UK as part of the "Action Stations! " children's programming block. ^[6]

Reception

Many gamers and gaming journalists proclaim that Viva Piñata is one of Rare's best outings yet, with IGN saying that it is the best Rare game since Microsoft acquired the company in 2002. In addition to IGN's positive 8.5 rating, it has received an 8.3 from GameSpot, a 9/10 from 1UP.com, and an 8.7 overall from Electronic Gaming Monthly. The game scores 84% on Metacritic based on 51 reviews, and an 85% on Game Rankings. In addition, GameSpot included it as one of their 10 nominees for their "2006 Game of the Year" award, although it later received only 3% of the total votes.^[15]

Viva Piñata's Concept Artist, Ryan Stevenson, has stated that they are indeed going to go further into the series including some new Piñata's and new characters in the series. [1]

While published sales figures for the game appear relatively low and failed to gather as much momentum as Nintendo's Pokémon craze, Justin Cook (of Rare) insists that the game has sold "close to half a million".^[16] Despite these discouraging figures, the game has gained a very loyal cult following.

Awards

Viva Piñata was nominated for 6 awards by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences for its 10th annual awards covering 2006,^[17] the maniest nominations a Rare title has had since Goldeneye 007. Nominated categories included:

• Console Game of the Year
• Outstanding Innovation in Gaming
• Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction
• Outstanding Achievement in Character Performance - Female (won)
• Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering
• Family Game of the Year

The game was also nominated for "Best Original Game" in X-Play's "Best Video Games of 2006" awards.^[18] Other accolades include a "Parents' Choice Gold Award" from the Parents' Choice Foundation.^[19]

References to other Rare titles

The game contains a number of references to earlier Rare titles and characters, primarily in the form of items which players can purchase for their gardens. These include:

• The player's initial garden space contains smashable junk, including an arcade machine with Grabbed by the Ghoulies artwork on it.
• The home of the parrot piñata, the Parrybo, features a cameo of Mr. Ribs from Grabbed by the Ghoulies.
• The Crowla's house is a small model of the mansion from Grabbed by the Ghoulies, while the Mallowolf's home is a reference to Sabre Wulf.
• The Jameleon's romance dance is composed of songs from Banjo-Kazooie and Grabbed by the Ghoulies.
• In the garden background, a mountain engraved with the face of Banjo and Kazooie can be seen. The remains of Baron Von Ghoul's plane (from Grabbed by the Ghoulies) can also be seen.
• Players can purchase statues of Banjo-Kazooie, Mumbo Jumbo, or Captain Blackeye for their gardens from the various in-game shops.
• The mole piñata, the Profitamole, requires purchasing an item labeled as "Bottles' Glasses" to romance.
• The Fizzlybear's attack items are golden jiggies (which is a reference to Banjo-Kazooie's jiggies).
• A backpack called a "Breegull Carrier" strongly resembling that of Banjo's, as well as Captain Blackeye's pirate hat, can be purchased as accessories for piñatas.
• Accessory Pack 1, an additional downloadable pack on the Xbox Live Marketplace, includes Vela's wig, Juno's helmet and Lupus' ears from Jet Force Gemini.
• Accessory Pack 2, an additional downloadable pack on the Xbox Live Marketplace, includes a Mr. Pants, Soupswill, and a Baron von Ghoul helmet, all which make appearances in Grabbed by the Ghoulies, with the latter two being featured.
• Accessory Pack 4, an additional downloadable pack on the Xbox Live Marketplace, includes an item called "Conga's Top Hat". Conga is a character from the Banjo-Kazooie series.
• Accessory Pack 6, an additional downloadable pack on the Xbox Live Marketplace, includes "Jiggy Earrings", "Grunty Hat", and "Jam-jar's Hat", all references to Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie.
• There is an in-game accessory called "Ortho's Spare Hat", a reference to Kameo: Elements of Power. The hat, however, resembles the hat Ortho wore in the early Xbox and GameCube builds of the game.
• One comment Leafos may tell a Gardener, referring to Rare's Xbox title, is the following: "One of the best games I ever played was 'Grabbed by the Ghoulies' "
• The scarecrow in the background of the garden is similar to the one in the beginning of Conker's Bad Fur Day.
• The Squazzil attacks with Conkers, the name of the main character from Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Spinoffs

Viva Piñata TV series

An animated TV series was produced in conjunction with the Xbox 360 game.

Viva Piñata: Party Animals

On October 30 2007, a party game spin-off,Viva Piñata: Party Animals was released. The game, developed by Krome Studios, features the TV show piñata characters in up to 50 party mini-games including kart racing, bug stomping and hungry hungry piñatas.

Ports

Nintendo DS

Rare announced plans to release a version of Viva Piñata for the Nintendo DS at Comic-Con 2007.^[20]

Windows

At E3 2007 during the Microsoft press conference, a PC port of Viva Piñata was announced. The conversion is being handled by Climax Group and will run on both Windows XP and Windows Vista. The game is part of the Games for Windows program which offers easier installation and support for Windows Vista's Games Explorer, Xbox 360 Controller for Windows and Parental Controls. The game was released on November 6 2007 in the United states, followed by the release in Europe on November 16, and will be released in Japan on January 18. ^[21]

Trivia

• Microsoft collaborated with Six Flags Mexico to promote the Xbox 360 as well as Viva Piñata. To do this, a 14.6-meter tall, 16-meter long piñata, specifically a Horstachio, was built at the park. It is officially the largest recorded piñata ever built.^[22]
• Released as a launch title with the Brazilian launch of the Xbox 360, it was the first ever game translated to Portuguese for the Xbox 360. It was also the first non-PlayStation console game to be translated into Polish and Korean.
• One of the loading screens makes a reference to the "Giant Enemy Crab" meme from Sony's E3 2006 PlayStation 3 press conference.^[23]

Notes and references

External links

• Viva Piñata Official Site
• Viva Piñata Page on Rare's Official Site
• Viva Piñata Wiki - PinataIsland.info