Piñatas are typically full of candy and fun to hit.
Now imagine a world full of living piñatas, ready to eat one another, “romance” one another and hide away from the dastardly Professor Pester.
In 2006 “Viva Piñata” was released for the Xbox 360. The game, which featured a world full of different species of piñatas ready to be bred, fed, sheltered, cared for and sent off to parties to make kids happy, was hugely popular.

Two years later, Rare has released two new “Piñata” titles, another for the Xbox 360 and surprisingly one for the Nintendo DS.
“Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise” for the Xbox 360 is really just an enhanced version of the original game. What really sets it apart from its predecessor is the ability to hunt piñatas in two different areas of the island, the Piñarctic and the Dessert Desert.

In these two new exotic locales, gamers can bait and trap new specimens of piñatas, from Pengums (penguins) and Flapyaks (yaks) to Pieenas (hyenas) and Camellos (camels). Once the new piñata species are caught, gamers have the ability to ship the piñata over to their main garden via the post office, and just like any other regular species, gamers can meet the piñata’s specific residence requirements to breed the piñatas in their gardens. The two new locales aren’t the only areas to find new piñatas, as there are 100 different species to feed and breed in the game.

While the actual garden space isn’t much bigger, it does hold more and the controls are a lot more user-friendly. Two player co-op mode is a lot of fun too, especially if you need some help keeping sour piñatas out of your garden while you keep the Pretztail from eating the Bunnycomb.
“Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise” for the Nintendo DS is by far the best “Piñata” game yet. While the graphics are nowhere near as impressive as those on the Xbox 360, the use of the stylus and the DS dual screen makes this game a must-have for any Nintendo DS owner. Having the garden alerts on the top screen while you garden away on the bottom screen is like a dream and it makes game play so much easier. The Xbox version features different alerts and pop-ups all over the screen while the DS version keeps the pop-ups to a minimum.

Surprisingly, this game also features a lot of the same cut-scene videos from the other games. The romance sequences, where the piñatas dance to make a baby egg come, are all there. Stop-motion introduction and new resident videos are there as well.
In the end, both games are great successors to the original, but the Nintendo DS version is the best way to waste time. While it isn’t as pretty to look at, nothing beats a little point-and-click version of “Viva Piñata” that you can keep in your pocket or even play in class. Both
games are out now for their respective systems.

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