Hawty McBloggy Invites You to Play

Viva Piñata, an Xbox 360 game released on November 9th, 2006, is now available at Amazon for $29.99 (it also qualifies for free shipping). If that isn’t incentive enough to buy this game if you have been on the fence about it, I’m not sure what is.

Viva Piñata is a child friendly sandbox-style type video game that appeals to people of all ages. I have spent numerous hours on this game enjoying the free structure of determining my own goals and steadily working towards them. You are given a basic garden plot in the beginning which you first need to clean up and then you begin your adventure. The basic premise of the game is to create a piñata paradise. By doing certain things in the garden, you attract visits from various piñatas. You then have to meet certain requirements to make it a resident. After a piñata is a resident, you can “romance” them and make piñata babies, feed them things that change their colors, and make them houses to live in. There is a piñata food chain of sorts that you can continue to climb to attain the more distinguished piñatas. Your goals are what you make them. At one point, I had a “My Little Pony” garden full of Ponockies and cute Ponocky pink stables. Yes, My Little Ponies were one of my favorite toys growing up!

As an adult, you can appreciate some of the things about the game that the little ones would not understand. You can romance your piñatas to make baby piñatas. The first time you romance a species of piñatas (there are 60 piñata species living on Piñata Island), the game will go into a cut scene of their special romance dance. While the dances are 100% innocent and simply consist of 2 piñatas doing a dance together, as an adult you can read into a bit more and have a good laugh at some of them. Please tell me I am not the only one who giggles at these! You can also name your piñatas so it is humorous giving them your friends names and watching to see who romances with who and laugh at how frequently they do it.

This game is entirely what you make of it. You play it as you want to, you create your own goals, you choose what path you want to take. There are levels that you achieve as a gardener and that is one of the things I really got into. As you get piñata visitors, piñata residents, romance the piñatas, change their colors, grow various flowers and trees, and get different achievements, you gain experience which makes your level increase. The last time I played, I was at a level 101. I told you I played this a lot!

The graphics are very colorful and pretty. It will draw the younger children into it as it draws the adults into it as well. I talked about this game so much in my clan forums (keep in mind I belong to a clan that everybody must be 21 and over) that several male members went and picked the game up and enjoyed it immensely. In fact one of my clanmates who goes by the name of Drizz made a special piñata he named “Shaved”. It was a beaver (yes, there is a bit of an adult joke in there) and it was decked out in the most obnoxious accessories. It is one of the ugliest things I had ever seen. We pass it around the clan and send it to the new people who purchase the game so everybody can enjoy him.

If you have children, this game received the Parent’s Choice Award so you can rest assured it is friendly for all ages. If you find yourself picking up this game either for yourself or for a little one, Piñata Island is an excellent website to gather some tips, whether you are a beginner or a pro.

I highly recommend you buy this game. You will enjoy it. Seriously.