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I'm not going to lie. I was so lost when trying to play Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise. It's not my type of game at all, and I felt like a fish out of water trying to play it in the time allowed. So instead of a normal hands-on deal, I'm just going to lay out some of the new features that this Viva Piñata will have:

  • There will be two player co-op. Both players can work together on a garden. People can drop in and out very easily.
  • A new mode allows players to just go nuts. You will have an infinite supply of money, all shops are open and no weeds or pests. Just having fun.
  • Two new environments: the desert and the arctic.
  • 30 new Piñatas on top of all the original Piñatas, bringing the number of Piñatas in Trouble in Paradise over 100.
  • Take pictures with the in-game camera that you can upload online. The game will know what's in the photo and tag the photo properly with which Piñata is in the shot.
  • Toys are introduced, such as a train track and balls.
  • There’s a Piñata tracker that cycles through all Piñatas in your garden, making it easier to find them.
Hit the jump for the really awesome LIVE Vision integration and the new real-life card system that I was actually able to understand and go into much greater detail on.

Probably the coolest aspect of the game is the LIVE Vision camera integration. On hand with the demo were a set of Viva Piñata cards. All the cards here had different Piñatas on the cover of the card with a bar code on the side of the card. You can take a card and then hold it in front of the Vision camera, which will then transfer whatever is on the card straight into the game. Besides Piñatas, there will also be environmental cards that change the time of day, the weather and more.

Now before you go yelling "ZOMG POKEMONS RIP OFF", it's not. Rare is not going to force players to buy cards here. You can actually point your Vision camera at your PC monitor at a picture of a Viva Piñata card and the game will read that. Print it out on a piece of paper, put your Zune/iPod in front of the camera, whatever. So long as the bar code is readable. The point here is that it's supposed to be a just a little bonus feature. 

The game looks to be trying to reach out to a bigger audience with some of the new tweaks and additions. Obviously, I wasn't able to spend as much time as I would have liked in order to form a proper opinion, but there's a good chance of a demo coming out, so you can at least give it a try before you buy it. 


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16 comments | showing # 1 to 16

covah's Avatar
covah at 05/15/2008 18:52
Did they say anything about expanding the size of the garden? The two new areas help, but I still feel that the garden's max size in the first game was way too small due to the fact that the houses took up a bunch of empty space around them.
Hamza CTZ Aziz's Avatar
Hamza CTZ Aziz at 05/15/2008 19:07
Covah: The garden is the same size but there can be more stuff in the garden now.
Wiid Whacker's Avatar
Wiid Whacker at 05/15/2008 19:33
@ COVAH

Yeah, I hated that. I always had to replace one species in my garden for another. Hope they fix that.
xdaytime's Avatar
xdaytime at 05/15/2008 19:53
Can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm pumped for viva pinata.
16bitmonster's Avatar
16bitmonster at 05/15/2008 20:48
i enjoyed the first one mainly because of the music.. i can't wait to hear the elfman inspired goodness this time around.

also, any official word on when the demo might be out? like hush hush status? :D
nintendoll's Avatar
nintendoll at 05/15/2008 21:05
Holy crap holy crap I'm so excited, I was actually playing Viva Pinata while reading this.

I want more squeaky candy filled animals.
Hamza CTZ Aziz's Avatar
Hamza CTZ Aziz at 05/15/2008 21:36
16bit: No clue!
akathatoneguy's Avatar
akathatoneguy at 05/15/2008 21:53
@ Hamza-

That's fine with me. It wasn't the sheer size of the gardens that bothered me, it was that you couldn't put many accessories, plants, pinata, etc. in there before it said it was full. You could have a bunch of open space with nothing in it and it was full. So that's good news.
Faceless's Avatar
Faceless at 05/15/2008 22:08
I sunk so many hours into the first Viva. As long as they fix some of the minor problems, such as the size thing mentioned by Covah, I'll most likely pick this up.
BlackSunEmpire's Avatar
BlackSunEmpire at 05/15/2008 22:42
CTZ, Im going to be a spelling Nazi and suggest you meant Arctic.
mistic's Avatar
mistic at 05/16/2008 08:57
i loved the first one, too bad there's only 30 new species though...

and yes, gardens should be a LOT bigger :-)
Sockapal's Avatar
Sockapal at 05/16/2008 10:25
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?! No vehicles to build for the pinatas to get around in? ABSURD! ----- Curse you Rare for not going that route....
AaronLindes Neighbor's Avatar
AaronLindes Neighbor at 05/16/2008 11:17
I would be happy with the ability to speed the cursor up and the promised Co-op on the same screen, over a larger garden size. The garden size limit is there to stop any RTS style frustration for users new to gaming, I'd imagine.
flaming burrito's Avatar
flaming burrito at 05/16/2008 11:37
did anyone see the skittles commercial with the pinata person? haha it made me think of viva pinata
Necros's Avatar
Necros at 05/17/2008 00:17
I lost three hours of my life to the demo for the original game. I should probably let one of the full games consume my life.
Sup3rt3d's Avatar
Sup3rt3d at 09/01/2008 16:55
there is vehicles... theres a train. A pinata train, genius
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