Viva Piñata

Thanks to the Xbox Community Network, we got another great interview to publish this week. This time it's with Justin Cool, designer at Rare and on Viva Piñata. See inside for some thoughts about the 'kiddie game' term, upcoming DLC and promises about more multiplayer features.

Microsoft sent me a review copy of Viva Pinata yesterday, and as always I started a game so I could train a bit before recording the first 10 minutes. 3 hours of gameplay later, I realize it's already late and I really should start recording the video. So I start it with a new garden on another profile, and once again I get totally hooked, this time for another 2 hours of "just a bit more".
To my surprise, Viva Pinata is a very deep and complete game, totally addictive. Yes it looks cute, but beneath this cuteness there is a very complex gameplay. I still can't believe how good this game is, it has some small flaws I'll detail tomorrow with the second part of the video, but I totally recommend buying it if you are even a tiny bit into micromanagement games. It's that good.
Update: The second part of the video is now online.

Microsoft and Rare released an "interactive video" of Viva Pinata on the Marketplace. The interactivity is limited to choosing a character between 2 three times, so in the end we get 1+6 videos showing some gameplay I've assembled in one.

Rare released these 6 new images of Viva Pinata, as colorful and beautiful as ever. Let's just hope the gameplay will be as good as the graphics.

SnakeX also managed to get a few private game demonstrations. The first one is Viva Pinata, but it's mostly the same stuff than what we saw in Lepzig and it's in french! It still does look very nice though :)

As a change here is a trailer without any CG. And it's still beautiful!
Update: 720p trailer

Viva Pinata only disappeared for a few days after the TGS, but it's back and kicking with these 15 very colorful images.

We've been invited to a new private presentation of Viva Pinata, looking as great as ever. We can't upload the full video yet, but here are some parts of it.

Microsoft released the Viva Pinata Fan Kit, and some of the images inside looked new to me. Also included were these not so interesting Concept Artworks.

The Game Convention is now almost over on Xboxyde, so it's time for me to put online this big and long presentation video of Viva Pinata. I've been able to record this footage explaining how the game works, and especially how we are able to get some type of Pinata in our garden. Even if this game is definitely aimed at a younger audience, I was surprised by how complex the interactions between the different types Pinatas could be.
The video can get a bit dark at times, it's completely my fault as I forgot to lock the exposure on my camcorder. It's still very watchable.