Trimming the Rose Busdhes
Viva Pinata was a cultural hit among gamers but sadly didn't get the praise it deserved from the public outside of forums due to poor release strategy (same time as Gears of War), so to see a sequel is a great surprise, and a welcome one too.
The problem with sim games is that sequels are very hard to do differently to their predacessor as game mechanics will always be familiar. So with VP: TIP we got what we came to expect from a VP sequel, more pinatas. The new 28 pinata are what makes this game immediatly fresh, with your first pinata being the new Bispotti. All are a welcome posse to the old ones and still carry the charm that you got with the first game when meeting new pinata.
This game is strongly reliant on the reward systems it has, with each little level up brings new seeds, new shovels, new items to buy and of course new pinata for you to attract. The player also now has the ability to travel to two new areas: the Pinartic, and the Desert Dessert. Here the player only has the abilty to hunt pinata and bring them back to the garden. This can't help but feel rather limited and not focused on more. It would have been more interesting to see newer game mechanics innvolved in these areas. This could have served Rare well to experiment with new game mechanics for this franchise.
The game does a good job at looking back at what VP done well and continuing that and improving on what it didn't do well. The whole interface is a lot more streamlined with less loading screens with most actions such as buying seeds or fertilizer mapped to the d-pad.
My biggest complaint is with the Ruffians still. The sour pinata add a good amount of antagonistic behaviour to the game but the ruffians seem unfair with you not being able to scare them off so easily or buy them out effectively causing you to lose a lot of coins. Professor Pester comes down now and is the worse one as rather than making a mess of your beautiful garden he is determined to smash open a pinata and eat all its sweets. I have yet managed to stop him from doing this. But this time Rare have given you the choice to play in a free play garden where there are no ruffians or sours just gardening. But I want the antagonistic gameplay just not in the form of the ruffians doing the crap that they do.
VP:TIP has a lot more features than the VP, enough so it doesn't feel like DLC but rather a new purchase. You get better incorporated Parties, tricks to find and teach pinata as well as their variants and wild cards, races, a more robust romance game, and of course the much talked about Pinata Vision.
Pinata vision is a fun inclusion if you have the camera but also an easy way to cheat the way through the game which i've held myself back from doing. It works surprisingly well if a bit fidfdly at some times trying to get the card in frame and focus.
What people found themselves doing in the first VP is that they were taking pictures of the garden and showing people. Now Rare have seen that and included it in the game by giving the player an in-game camera to take pictures with and either upload to your account on www.vivapinata.com as a normal picture or turn it into a card to give to people.
Finally you also have the option to play co-operatively with friends on the couch or over xbox live taking care of one request from gamers the first time round wanting to plant seeds with their friends.
The game is still as fun as the the first and less frustrating with its better interface and camera controls. It has enough new features to keep you busy well beyond the levels you attained in the first game, and will suck up more time than first one ever did. If you have never played VP then you're an idiot for letting it go this long, but now is a perfect time to start your own garden. If you played the first one chances are you loved it and won't take a second guess as to whether or not to buy this one.
