Viva Pinata for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

Now I dont know what some expected from this game, but I was thinking like most, kids game. If I knew a kid that could play this game well I would buy stock in him.
This game is absolutely beautiful looking. the colors are vibrant and the creatures are very creative. The artistic design has yet to be out done on the Xbox360.
the game play is clever, not entirely knew, but clever. Its your not so typical sim game. You make a visiting species happy and he will take up residence in your garden. Then another will move in, eventually you get them to mate and have offspring and so the food chain begins. Yes you have to sacrifice some of your Pinatas to make others happy.
Its all very engaging and addictive. The hours will just melt buy.
I highly recommend Viva Pinata to "anyone". this game can please even the most die hard shooter fan to the casual gamer alike.

Storyline:
At the beginning of the game you've inherited a piece of land on Pinata Island to restore to its past glory of a garden haven for a variety of Pinatas and plants. The game premise is relatively simple, make sure your garden is well cared for by watering plants, and providing an appropriate habitat for wandering Pinatas who are looking for a home. Throughout the story you receive upgrades to your gardening tools as your gardening prowess grows, which is shown by the levels you gain from Pinatas moving into your garden and plants thrive. You can romance Pinatas which then create new Pinatas of that same species which allows another way for your garden population to grow. Your garden can also be upgraded through purchases which range from homes for your Pinatas to live and romance to hats for your Pinatas to wear. Occasionally sours or bad Pinatas will make there way into your garden and will cause you Pinatas to get sick but thankfully the village comes equipped with a doctor who always on call and will come to your aid.
Sound:
Both the sound effects and music are fantastic for this kid targeted game. The effects fit appropriate events as its easy to tell if something good or bad occurred just by the sound effect. The same can be said for the music, which changes frequently enough not to be to repetitive.
Graphics:
The graphics are very good. All the Pinatas are very colorful and while they don't always move in the most realistic manor, what can one expect from Pinatas! The animations are very unique and I loved the fact that the Pinatas interact with each other and any objects in the garden.
Game play:
The game play was disappointing. It becomes relatively formulaic, as one continues to plant seeds, water them, romance Pinatas, and wack Sours that invade your garden. Its a great game for a break from the typical 360 game but its clearly a title designed for a child's learning curve. A good title but not a must have, unless have young kid(s).

My rating of this game is not all that high, but that does not mean I think its a bad game. It seems to be a deep game that, if one could get into, would be very enjoyable.
There is a lot of micro-management and building, so if you are a fan of the sims games, you may like this one. I was not a big fan of that sort of game, therefore, got a little tired of doing the same tasks again and again trying to impress creatures to coming onto my farm.
It's also a little childish. Not just the graphics, but what needs to be done in the game. The mini-games are a lot like pac-man sans ghosts and fruit, and the rest of the time you are planting trees and fruit, also talking to quircky NPC's about what they are selling.
Maybe I didn't give the game the chance it deserved, but all I know is it failed to hold my attention after 4 or 5 hours of trying. My final word, rent if you have the required personality traits and like the kind of game where you plant and manage.

This game is addictive fun. I picked it up a few days ago - began playing - and before I knew it - 3 hours of gameplay passed. I found myself sitting at the edge of my seat, focused on the happenings of my garden. As noted in the title of my review - a person of any age can have fun playing this game - I'm 26.

I was waiting for this game for like 4 months and when i heard they delayed it i was furious... i was thinking " this game better be good" and when it came out the next month, i was not disappointed. this game is fun to watch or play. if you do not believe me look for yourself.

This game is definitely fun. My 7 year old daughter can't get enough of it. The first few level increases go smoothly, but as it progresses it gets a bit crowded and confusing. There are so many new pinatas around and so little space after level 9 that it is just short of chaos. But working out these types of problems for some reason isn't without entertainment value. Great for your inner sadist.

My daughter is 5. I bought this for her for Christmas. We are having a blast playing this.

While we are in the early stages of this game, there is a ton of stuff to see and do, I would be willing to bet at some point this is going to peak and it will become same-old-same-old, But in the meantime it is really fum and looks great.

I would recommend it if you are going to play it with your kids.(not if you are an adult, It will bore you)

I've played this game for a week now and I'm still not for sure if I like it or could recommend it to anyone. It really has to be played to be understood and even then, I'm not for sure you will understand it. That said, I have no intention of sending it back anytime soon.

From what I've played, the basic idea is to collect as many different cute pinatas as you want, try to make them happy, breed them, keep them safe and have fun along the way. You grow various plants and animals to attract more species to live in your garden. Along the way, the game sends you challenges to overcome, like evil pinatas called sours, which create trouble for your garden in a variety of ways.

My biggest complaint is that the game feels like it doesn't have any direction or goals. You have to figure everything out as you go along. So, there are a lot of times where you don't know what to do next and you just sit there observing everything. About the time you are getting ready to stop playing and put it in the envelope, something happens and the game gives you a reason to keep playing. Whether its a new pinata visiting your garden or you find a seed laying around to plant. I'm starting to "get it" and I'm able to do things on my own without the game prompting me. I think that’s why I'm not loosing interest in playing, yet.

I think there are people who would really get into this game. I'm really sucked in mainly because of the sytle and the laid back gameplay. There aren't too many games for the 360 where you can just sit on the couch, have a drink and relax while playing. It’s a really good contrast to a heavy night of blowing stuff up or racing.

Personally, I'm not for sure how long I'll keep playing it, but as of now, I'm hooked and I have no idea why. This game is the perfect example of why I have Gamefly. I never would have bought this in a store, but I'm having a blast playing it, at least for now.

Enjoy!

Sneaky

Raising and developing species of pinatas is an epic task that is ultimately fun. Its especially fun if, like me, you have to skip a few meals in order to be able to afford a new videogame console, and suddenly you can purchase thousands of dollars in merchandise with a successful ranching business.

I wouldn't say that the AI is not intelligent, so much as it is purposefully difficult. Animals deliberately disobey you to encourage you to punish them by whacking them with a shovel. Fights will break out, animals will die, and the circle of life is blatant in every interaction. Flies poo if you feed them, the animals have to mate via a maze mini-game in order to procreate, and every once in a while, some jerk will come over and kill something at random. Great way to teach kids about the fundamentals of life, including the economy.

I got this game initially to give my wife something fun to play with on the XBox when I wasn't blowing up Locust or racing sports cars around. She has played it a little bit, and here I am with practically all of the achievements unlocked!

Superficially, this game appears made to be attractive and approachable to kids. But behind the cutesy exterior is a complex and interesting game with many different playstyles to explore and things to try.

If you're into the "Sim" type games, then you should definitely try this one out and see if it appeals to you.

This is a truly wonderful game for kids and adults alike. There are wonderful graphics, and it really pulls you in. This is a great game to earn achievements with and is really fun.

This is a good game. I'm 26 and played it a week. Looks very childish on the surface, however the micromanagement required is at more of an adult level I would say. I would say this game is better than the vast majority of 360 games.
If your looking into this as a game for your kid, even though some of the harder aspects are complicated, I would think a child would really enjoy raiseing the critters and slowly developing into the harder ones. Anyways don't dismiss it because looks. Many of the best things in life are dismissed at a glance by the majority.

This game ROCKS!
What could be better then raising a colony of living
pinatas in a magical garden?!?! Fending of evil pinatas with a shovel and bashing them open never gets tired! You can even have you own pinatas resort to canabalisim! Its even multiplayer!!!

This game looks so incredibly stupid, the first time I saw it I said "Wow, why the heck would I want this???" Then I heard about how good it was and I decided to pick a copy up. Really not a bad game. I was stupid to think this was a bad game. But this was before I got my 360. Now I have a 360 and a copy of this game and have to say a few things:
1. Starts out a little repetitive then gets interesting enough you don't want to put it down.
2.Pinatas do NOT like to be hit with shovels.
3. I owe RARE and and Microsoft Studios apologies. I judged Viva Pinata by it's cover and I was wrong the whole time (Except for now when I know what I'm talking about.). Sorry to anyone who worked on Viva Pinata. I will definitely be looking into buying VP: PA and VP: TIP. Overall, worth a buy. Buy it used if you can to get a discount. You won't regret it.

Viva Pinata is a game that looks like one for kids. But this game is extremely enjoyable to all ages. The graphics are stunning... better than alot of games, and the game all depends on what you do. You house pinatas in you own garden, making living spaces and enviroments to attract pinatas to your garden. The game play is solid and fun. The game can get repetitive after a while, but I had fun playing this game alot.

Okay, I had heard so much about people getting hooked on this game that I thought I'd try it out. Who would've guessed it was so addictive? It sucks away hours of your time without you even noticing. I can't even describe what the appeal is. You're consistently thinking, "what else can I possibly do to these pinatas for my entertainment?" And then five seconds later, something new pops up. You think, "I'll just finish romancing these whirlms, and then I'll go to work." Next thing you know, it's three days later, and you're fired. You may want to hit the "keep it" button, but don't do it! You'll never leave the front of your tv again!

this game is very good and addicting. However its a little tougher than i expected. Trying to manage your garden to perfection is very tought animals will fight each other and such.
This game to me seems to look like for little kids but i dont see a little kid playing this game and getting anywhere.
This game can be fun for anyone. I mean im a BIG shoot fan ive been playing GOW since emergence day and well i took a brake to play Viva Pinata not expecting much. However ive played for about 6 hours now. This game is interesting and i recommend it for anyone to try. Ive had several people play and they've all said wow that was actually cool.
This game does have problems to. The Creatures get stuck on fences. Your Henchmen guys will get stuck. This game is very fun and worth the rent bottom line.

I won't begin this by saying that Viva Pinata is a bad game. It is pretty addicting, even when I didn't know what was going on. I played for several hours over the course of two nights, but am still left with the nagging thought: why am I doing this?

After a slow start, I managed to begin building a small community. With each new animal or life event in your garden, you are treated to a short video. After awhile these began to be interruptions to my gaden building. I'd be moving right along, planting grass or carrots or something, and (zing!) it would be movie time. Ugh. After the first 20 movies or so, I just wanted to click through them and get back to my garden and what I was doing prior to Movie Time.

The game is very colorful and is a treat for the eyes. The graphics are bright and cheery and really thought out. If based on the screenshots you think your 10 year old would love this game, I'd have to disagree. It is very complex and darn right confusing at times. I found myself sitting staring at my screen wondering, "What now? Do I just sit and watch them? Am I supposed to be doing something else?" I'd go to hint-giving NPC in the game (who oddly enough wanders your garden) and she'd have nothing to say to me other than what she said last time she ever spoke.

There is extremely mild violence as some Pinatas must eat other Pinatas to survive. You can also smack your Pinatas around with a shovel. Smack too much and they get unhappy.

I am going to devote more time to this endeavor, but I thought I'd get this out now due to the recent release of this game on Gamefly. It is confusing at times. It is bright and cheery! It is not designed with children in mind. It is bright and cheery! Too many "movie breaks" for my tastes or at least give me the option to click through (I never found it if it is there). It is bright and cheery!

This isn't necessarily a bad game, but that doesn't make it a good game, either. The graphics are very well done: pinatas look like pinatas would look. The animations are very fluid and the controls are very simple to use.
There are two problems with this game for me. The first problem is the game wants to hold your hand and guide you through every little thing there is, and it does this very slowly. I can understand this since it's mainly a kids' game, but it was annoying that there was no way to turn it off.
This leads to the second problem of the game. It wants to hold your hand and tell you everything you need to do, but then you have to micromanage everything like crazy. Not enough plants and critters won't visit; too many plants and they won't visit. It's hard to get some pinatas to come to your garden. Once you have them there, to get another type of pinata to come, you have to let the new one eat the one you worked hard to get. I don't really understand this. You work hard to get a certain type, only to have it eaten by another type you need.
Overall, the game was fun for about the first 2 hours, then there was too much going on and too much to keep track of. And it's also tough to make money in the game to buy the things you need to attract more pinatas.

well i never thought i was going to rent this game at all, but i had to due to the Easy achievements (i'm an achievement person)

so to make this story short...

the game is highly addictive but by what means i dunno but it sucked me into it and i kept playing, and playing.

overall the graphics are very nice the mood of the game is peaceful (so if your an angry pick up this game and it will calm you down) and gameplay is cool + very addicting

and if your a person that likes to unlock achievements like me then pick this up...

Viva pinata is oddly a good game, you start off with a small plot of lan and from there you make soil grow grass and this attracts other pinatas, may seem dumb but you wont be able to stop as you attract more animals you can build them houses, and start to breed them there is always somthing for you to do a large variety of animals and some side things for you to do like send your pinatas to parties and in return you get prizes, you can hire help when your garden gets large enough, with all games theres bad guys bats , ruffians , and other creatures, so when night comes your constantly patroling to keep your pinatas safe , now some pinatas eat others but this must happen to keep them happen and some require this for romance yes thats right you can breed them and create more weird creatures, you will spend hours playing this game asking youself how am i having so much fun with such a simple game well i ask myself that but its so simple and fun that you cant stop because there is so much your have to do like, water flowers, dig ponds for water animals, build houses, grow plants for food, like isaid definately rent it will keep you occupied for a long time and is fun in a weird way really cant explain until you play good luck have fun, keep gamin FLANKYA

I rented Viva Pinata to play with my 5 and 7 year old sons. The game was cute and funny, but did not really catch their interest. The play was too difficult for them to do by themselves, and the story was not engaging enough to keep them going. Growing the garden ended up just being work rather than fun for both me and my wife. We did not get into any of the on line aspects of the game.

The good:
- Nice visuals
- Kid friendly story
- Good concept
- Funny moments

The bad:
- Annoying control scheme
- Overload on alerts
- Too complicated for younger children
- More work than fun

The Other:
- Parents should know that this game could lead to an unexpected discussion of the birds and the bees with their children. It is handled in a very low key fashion, but the "romance dance" can lead to awkward questions (assuming you have not already started fielding "those" questions :) )

me myself think that they sould make this for ps3 not x box becuase its so damb fun and ive played it at my freinds house all the time and never got bored so what the he11 what happend to ps3

The game is great good graphics good gameplay but the story isnt great,BUT BUY IT ANYWAYS GREAT GAME!