Viva Pinata - X06 Impressions Preview

Unveiled during Spring 2006, Viva Piñata is the third Xbox 360 title to be developed by Rare since the launch of Microsoft's next-gen console at the end of 2005. In a bid to open up the appeal of Xbox 360 beyond the usual demographic, Viva Piñata has also been the subject of a 4Kids TV show, and follows the strange land of Piñata Island from the eyes of a group of Piñata friends.

Very much a North American phenomenon, and originally thought to have been introduced by Spanish colonists to Mexico, Piñatas are now starting to encroach birthday parties on this side of the Atlantic too. Created from papier-mâché and resembling everything from basic shapes through to animals, Piñatas are suspended above the ground and are subject to a thrashing from stick-wielding brats, er...children. And the point of all this? Piñatas are filled with sweets so that when they crack open, the kids can gorge themselves on the candy in a way that would make Jamie Oliver turn in his grave (if he was dead...though that can be arranged). TVG managed to visit Rare's latest world at the recent X06 event in Barcelona, and experience the piñata mating dances first hand...

Like the animated series (set to hit Europe in 2007), Viva Piñata is set on colour-saturated Piñata Island, and sees players manage a small garden that's become overgrown from neglect. Microsoft's representative during the Viva Piñata demonstration, Chris Kimmel, explained that whilst the garden will start off as the same patch of wasteland for everybody, the player's decisions and strategies during the course of the experience will mean that there'll be countless variants and specialist gardens a matter of hours into the game, and especially by the time it reaches maturity. More on that a little later, for now we're just stuck with a patch of wasteland without a piñata in sight...

Our guide through the early stages of the game is Leafos, a small girl who enjoys wearing a mask shaped like a leaf. Besides explaining some of the early game mechanics, such as how to attract piñatas and keep them within the boundaries of our garden, she also gives us our first pieces of equipment, a pack of grass seed and a battered old shovel. Whilst recent trailers for Viva Piñata demonstrates some of the more advanced stages of a garden in all its diverse glory, their beginnings are far more humble. Armed with the dishevelled shovel, a player's first task will be to turn the hard ground into soil capable of growing grass, which will then attract the most basic piñata in the game - a worm-shaped creature called a Whirlm.

Every piñata species has four stages of development, the first one acknowledging its attraction to a player's garden. Moving around the outside periphery of the garden, these bland and white coloured piñatas have noticed the garden and may end up become a visitor - the second stage of their development - whereby they cross the boundary and into the player's bit of land. Each of the piñatas are attracted to different things, for some, it may be the presence of another piñata species, whilst for others it could be the focus on water features or a certain type of tree. Microsoft has confirmed that there will be cross-linking between the videogame and the TV series, so that players will be able to learn how to attract certain piñata species to their gardens by watching the actions of the cartoon.

Even as a visitor, piñatas remain black and white, and it's only when they become a resident of the garden that they emerge in glorious plumes of colour. Across the sixty species of piñatas in the game however, Rare is allowing a certain amount of character customisation; players will be able to tag their piñatas with their own mark, as well as add a variety of accessories (guess what form future downloadable content for the game will take), though it won't extend into customising the colours of the piñatas themselves. Swapped piñatas will then retain the tag and accessory details of its original creator, something that Microsoft and Rare both hope will be an attractive feature for some gamers seeking to make a name for themselves in the Viva Piñata community. It would be quite nice to see some sort of tracking feature that would allow players to follow the dispersal of their swapped piñatas around the globe, though whether something like that can be added between now and the release of the game is unknown.t

Having settled in the garden, piñatas can then 'get it on' and perform their own mating dances, which are unique to each species. But in order to successfully breed, players will first have to build a home for the newcomers and then successfully complete a mini-game (no, this isn't the papier-mâché equivalent of Hot Coffee...), for instance navigating one piñata through a maze to it's partner. At first, these mazes are straightforward and simple enough, but Rare promises that the challenge mounts up the more complex the piñata. The opposite to life is of course death, but that's something that piñatas won't have to worry about in the game: if eaten by a predator, a piñata's 'soul' reappears outside the garden boundary where it can decide whether to re-enter or not. A garden full of 'piñata-vores' may scare away some of the weaker species in the game however, so getting that balance will be one of the key skills for players to learn. Players will also be able to crack open piñatas, spilling their candy in the process; something quite sinister is that the other piñatas will come over to feast on these gut-like remains...

Cracking open piñatas is one strategy that players can use when faced with the malevolent sour-piñatas, though feasting on the candy of the wild ones will make the other piñatas ill. Whilst cracking them is the simple solution to counter the garden invaders, the smarter way to deal with the sour piñatas is to discover a way to tame them, and therefore bring their own skills to the player's garden (for instance sour snail piñatas will eat the garden's plants but will only target the weeds if tamed).

An open-ended experience, there are no clear goals to be found in Viva Piñata; players are free to create their own unique garden and become specialists in 'breeding' (or should that be mass-producing???) a particular species of piñata such as Horstachios, Fudgehogs, or Mousemallows, which can then be traded over Xbox Live. An early element of gameplay that had been confirmed in the first set of statements for Viva Piñata was the ability for players to visit the gardens of other gamers, though at X06, Kimmel announced that the feature wouldn't be included in the shipped product, but that Rare remain still hopeful that it could be added in the future.