| Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise | 
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| From: Microsoft
Category: Video Games
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $36.99
You Save: $3.00 (8%)
 from $14.99
Avg. Customer Rating:   (10 reviews)
Sales Rank: 565
Platform: Xbox 360
ESRB: Everyone
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 5 - 20 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: C3Q001
Model: 882224718561
UPC: 882224718561
EAN: 0882224718561
ASIN: B0019MRKNI
Release Date: September 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Teach single or groups of pinatas dazzling tricks using the new 'Trick Stick Tool'. | | • | Fully customizable gardens and pinatas. | | • | All new ways to play including the tutorial-based player guide system as well as co-op, standard and 'just for fun' modes. | | • | Xbox LIVE Vision camera support via the 'Pinata Vision' feature allows players to scan in game content and share it with friends online. | | • | Game features more than 100 pinata species both tame and wild. |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Return to magical Pinata Island in Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. Unfortunately, not all is well on the island, as Professor Pester and his gang of Ruffians have wiped out Pinata Central's computer records, posing a threat to parties everywhere. Rebuild the computer database and thwart Professor Pester's evil plot by sending pinatas at full candiosity to parties all around the world. Build and maintain your pinata gardens?using your creativity and imagination to attract, trap, protect, train, and manage more than 100 different pinata species.
Amazon.com Product Description
The original Rare Ltd. team behind Viva Pinata has reunited to bring gamers Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise, the newest and most fun pinata adventure to date. Available exclusively on Xbox 360, Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise reinvigorates a colorful and engaging gaming experience on the Xbox 360 platform. Now with full cooperative and online gameplay modes, the Viva Pinata franchise opens its doors even wider with a new game that provides hours of fun for gamers of all ages, fans of the animated series and animal lovers alike. 
Return to Pinata Island | 
Play is easy with the Pinata finder.
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Team up for co-op play in the garden.
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Pinatas are fully customizable.
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Teach pinatas tricks with the 'trick stick tool'.
View larger. | There's New Trouble on Pinata Island
Unfortunately, not all is well on the island, as Professor Pester and his gang of Ruffians have wiped out Pinata Central's computer records, posing a threat to parties everywhere. Rebuild the computer database and thwart Professor Pester's evil plot by sending pinatas at full candiosity to parties all around the world. Build and maintain your pinata gardens using your creativity and imagination to attract, trap, protect, train, and manage more than 100 different pinata species. More Ways to Play
While Trouble in Paradise maintains the gameplay mechanics players of the original game will remember, it also adds a few new twists, giving players more choices on how to make their garden grow. These include:Player Guide System - Replacing the traditional tutorial, the optional Player Guide System directs players through a series of loose goals to help them master the fundamental aspects of the game.Standard Mode - Presenting a challenge for experienced pinata gardeners and dedicated gamers, the Standard gameplay mode provides a more tricky option, where players must keep a watchful eye on their garden. Sour pinatas, feuding species, weeds, illness and limited money call for you to exercise problem solving and creativity to build and maintain an environment where pinatas can flourish and grow.Just for Fun Mode - Designed for beginner players, kids and those just looking to explore Pinata Island, this mode allows players to jump into the garden and interact with the unique pinata world. In this mode the difficulty has been turned down and the fun has been turned up. Sour pinatas stay away, resident pinatas remain healthy, weeds don't plague your garden and you have an infinite chocolate coin bank account, allowing you to turn your garden into a veritable utopia of colorful creatures.Improved Co-Op Play - While the original Viva Pinata had a simple system where two players could mutually control the single game cursor via different controllers, Trouble in Paradise adds drop-in/drop-out offline gameplay for two players and online co-operative gameplay for up to four players. This allows additional players to join the game at any time to assist the primary player with gardening tasks. Key Features: - Customize Your Garden and Pinatas - Plant flowers, dig ponds, even place sand and snow in your garden to make exotic species of pinata feel at home. Buy objects to change the weather, or get new toys for your pinata. And nurture the thirty-two new species of pinata, including sour pinatas that infiltrate and wreak havoc in the garden. Choose to tame the sours, or feed them candy to keep them sweet.
- Play With a Friend - Family members and friends can now share in the joy of creating a garden by plugging in an extra controller. The second player has access to all tools, actions, activities, and can help by collecting magic. It's an entirely new way to play.
- Play Multiple Game Modes - Use the Player Guide System to master the fundamental aspects of the game. Then, try the Standard Mode where sour pinatas, feuding species, and limited money call for you to exercise problem solving and creativity to build and maintain your garden. Or enjoy Just for Fun Mode, which allows you to build a garden full of colorful creatures without worries.
- Experience Pinata Vision - Plug in an Xbox LIVE Vision camera and interact with the game through the use of printed cards featuring a unique barcode. Flash a pinata card up to the Vision camera, and the content will drop directly into the game.
- Show off to friends - Use the new photo mode to snap, print, and upload pictures of your unique garden or customized pinatas to show to friends. Photograph your pinata and turn it into a pinata card, then share it with your friends so they can scan it and put it into their own garden.
- Teach Your Pinata Tricks - Pinatas can perform dazzling tricks, if you teach them with the new trick stick tool. Watch as pinatas play together, perch on each other, and interact in new ways to make them even more appealing.
Add Game Content with Pinata Vision
Trouble in Paradise also utilizes the optional Xbox LIVE Vision camera accessory through a feature entitled Pinata Vision. With this players can import, activate, create and share game content via optical card scanning technology. These cards do not necessarily have to be purchased, and instead are primarily downloaded from the game's website. Game developer, Rare, and Microsoft Game Studios are also considering making certain special cards available as part of promotions with magazines or gaming websites, ensuring that fans of the Viva Pinata franchise can expect fresh, exciting for years to come.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
Hate to be a naysayer, but... October 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I played the original Viva Pinata all the way through, which is a rarity for me to do with any game. I was strangely addicted to it and had about a dozen different gardens. I looked forward to the release of the 2nd version, Trouble in Paradise, assuming I would enjoy it at least as much as I did the previous version.
Perhaps I burned out on the game previously and didn't realize it, but I found myself becoming bored with this version early on. While there are new pinatas to catch, there just didn't seem to be enough, really, for the price. I liked the idea of having sand/desert style items as well as snow. However, I found the method of trapping the pinata in those locations a bit quirky. Why can't I have a garden there, instead of just visiting?
The thing I liked the most about the new version was the online play. However, I just don't know that many people who play this game to make it a worthwhile feature. As I said in the title of my review, I hate to be a naysayer, but I just don't think this game lived up to its expectations. Try renting it first to see if you really like it before actually purchasing it if you are unsure.
Oh, and the whole idea of collecting cards & scanning them in with your vision camera is bunk. I don't own a camera as I just don't see the need in seeing the people I am playing online. So unless I want to spend more money, that's just part of the game I will miss out on.
It is a nice pinata game. September 15, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
(From PlayingWithMyWeiner.com:)
f you're my friend or my poor husband, you've heard me running around for months singing the following (to the tune of "La Cucheracha"):
Viva Pinata, Viva Pinata
It is a nice pinata game!
Viva Pinata, Viva Pinata
No two pinatas are the same!
Ole!
Before this week, though, it was a lie. All of my brightly colored papery pals were the same. Same colors, same Candyosity, same names. Never more.
Viva Pinata:Trouble in Paradise from Rare and Microsoft Game Studios builds on the original Viva Pinata formula of building a garden, attracting and breeding pinatas, and sending them off to children who enjoy their sweet sweet candy. Players who "dug" the original will like this one, because it has everything the first game has and more. New gardeners won't feel left behind: the game has an excellent and reasonably interesting tutorial system that will set you up with gardening basics. Besides, it's not that difficult a game.
That is not to say that VP:TIP is not without depth. As in the original, your job is to build and nurse a budding ecosystem literally from the ground up. Start with clearing enough grass or soil and you'll attract adorable little Whirlms in your garden. They'll soon attract Sparrowmints, who will eat the Whirlms and may themselves be eaten by a Buzzenge as a part of their Romance requirement. It's all a part of the great circle of life. Or something.
VP:TIP improves on the original in several ways. First, it simplifies the menu system, particularly the buying and selling aspects. Gardeners can now just highlight objects for sale and they are automatically marked, rather than having to trudge all the way to the village. On the retail side, objects are placed immediately in the garden right before the money (chocolate coins) changes hands. This saves you "travel time" and really helps in letting you see how you want to plan your garden.
Other improvements include the introduction of an actual storyline. Professor Pester, leader of the sour pinatas, has a plan to destroy this paper paradise forever. He's a man (a "straw" man?) with a plan, which both unfurls and unravels as you level up your garden. The Prof's intrusions can range from just sending Sour Shellybeans to eat up all your seeds to building stone walls that keep essential pinatas out of your garden until you can pay to knock the walls down.
I mentioned "no two pinatas are the same", and this time its true. Not only can you still name each and every pinata, and design a custom tag for it, but they also all have varying states of happiness. These states are known as the pinatas' "Candiosity", and are an indicator of how happy your paper pal is in your garden. The higher Candiosity level, the more your pinata is worth, and the more likely that she or he will stay in your garden and make lots of little pinatas.
The Prof's machinations, along with a more structured mission system (usually "raise a pinata with maximum candiosity and ship it somewhere around the world") really add to the adventure without taking away from the sandbox feel.
Rounding out the new features are opportunities to leave the garden, both in game and out of game. In game, you can use signposts to nip off to such exotic locations as the Dessert Desert and the Pinarctic region. You don't play in these gardens - you go there, capture new and exciting pinatas, and bring them to your home garden. Out of game, you can search other folks' gardens if they are on XBox Live, or use the Xbox Live vision camera to scan pinata cards (ala Sony's Eye of Judgement) and import new pinatas into your garden. Full garden multiplayer, both at home and via XBox Live, completes the set.
If this all sounds like a lot, it is because it is, which is one of the chief issues with the game. The problem is not that it is too deep, but rather that there is too much thrown at the player too fast with not nearly enough space to use it all. For example, in order to get a pair of pinatas to do their Romance Dance (mate) they need a home. Each species of pinata has its own type of home, and even the smallest of these, the modest Whirlm home, consumes a considerable amount of real estate. By the time you've built the Sweetle home you need to complete the final tutorial mission, you're out of room for more pinata homes unless you significantly tear up your little slice of heaven. Your garden size does increase, but the first bump isn't until level 12, by which time you'll really need the extra space.
The more things change, however, the more they stay the same. The developers obviously spent a lot of time lovingly crafting pinatas and items. Why, then, could they not manage to record all new bits for the speaking characters? As far as I know no one had a deep-seated attachment to the exact phrases spoken by shopkeeper Lottie Costalot as she swindled you out of your coins. In fact, most of her phrases (and the other villagers') were pretty annoying. There are some new spoken bits, but most of it is reruns.
All in all, though, Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise is a worthy sequel to Viva Pinata. The visuals have been upgraded, and the pinatas actually look like paper. The game controls better, and the new Romance Dance cutscenes are hysterical and adorable. If you haven't seen a VP Romance Dance, check one out on YouTube.
The bottom line is that if you don't like sandbox games or god games, you're not going to start liking them with Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. If you do enjoy them, and particularly if you enjoyed the original Viva Pinata, you've got a lot of love coming in this title. Share it with your friends! Just beware of papercuts.
I'm giving Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise 4 Weinatas out of 5.
 Great game. September 11, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I feel that if you're a fan of the original, you probably don't need this review. For those who are new to the Pinata games, it's a game where you tend to a garden in order to attract new pinatas to it. Gameplay focuses on growing plants and trees, keeping your pinatas safe and happy, and "catching them all". While it seems simplistic and childish, the game is surprisingly deep like the original. As your gardening skills get bigger, you receive various upgrades to your tools, the plants at your disposal, the size of your garden, and of course, the pinatas that are coming in to see what all the fuss is about.
One of the greatest things about this is how relaxing it can be to tend to your garden and watch the pinatas roam about. While there is a bit of comic violence in the game, it isn't enough to raise eyebrows and is perfectly suitable for most children 8+. Also, the game incorporates 2 player Co-Op so you can play with a friend or with your children. Hopefully this little review helps you get a decent understanding of the game and whether or not you would enjoy it.
Awesome game even for adults and serious games September 10, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Don't let the little kid looks fool you. This is even more addicting for adults. And yes, even hardcore games should have a lot of fun with it, if they go in with an open mind. A must have for any 360 owner who doesn't mind a little cuteness in their games.
 Save File No Longer Valid September 9, 2008
1 out of 14 found this review helpful
Thought it was a fun casual game, just like the first one. Only (big) problem. After getting really far; my save file became corrupt some how. I was even careful about not turning off the consol while the save was in progress and everything. And now I'm not motivated to start again. I would be interested to know if anyone else had this problem...
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