Viva Piņata is region-free

By Tom Bramwell Published 13 November, 2006

(And filled with fun.)

"It's horse party time!" is the cry that's going out as we discover that our US copy of Viva Piņata works fine on a PAL Xbox 360. We thought you'd want to know.

That puts it in good company of course, with Gears of War having been confirmed as region-free last week too. Except in Viva's case, the wait for the PAL version would otherwise be longer - now you can nab it from the US without having to hang around until 1st December.

Anyway, time to go and make some gardens! Look out for our review soon. [And yes, we think his behaviour's been a bit sinister lately, too - Ed]

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • repairmanjack #1 5 years ago

    It's the Asian version I'm waiting to hear about...

  • morriss #2 5 years ago

    Great stuff. Looking forward to the review.

    Heard anything from Rare about the added 'Live' implementation - visiting others' gardens - they talked about in Ellie's preview?

  • Steroyd #3 5 years ago

    Disc havn't you heard?

    New IP's don't sell unless it's a shooters of sorts.

    That's quite depressing actually. :(

  • Talha #4 5 years ago

    Those animals in VP rather disturb me - they're scary. Yeah yeah, laugh all you want. I think cute and cuddly is something to be done with extreme care.

  • Hunam #5 5 years ago

    DONT FORGET TO BUY SOME HATS!!!! AND HORSEY ARMOR!

  • AcidSnake #6 5 years ago

    I'll bet you they'll soon start selling pinata viagra...So that they'll breed faster...

  • alimokrane #7 5 years ago

    What's the best place to get it from the US in terms of Price/delivery time ?

  • ChrisOTR #8 5 years ago

    This whole thing pisses me off. Either go region-locked, or region-free. This half-way nonsense is ridiculous - it leads to hundreds of tedious (no offence) news articles, and lots of confusion from customers.

    Lots of people are probably still in the same position as me - I really want a 360 but won't buy one because it's region-locked at all (I'm a Brit living away for a few years, but intending to go back to the UK eventually).

  • Harlequeen #9 5 years ago

    Ordered now. Just need to get the faceplate too. Perfect faceplate when playing Prey, nicely ironic.

  • melw #10 5 years ago

    If they'd just go all the way region-free... It may be just selected promotional ones, to confuse people that X360 releases are region-free just like PS3 even if it's not generally the case. Wouldn't mind if I could go importing the Xbox games if this trend were to stay.

  • bonker #11 5 years ago

    Looking forward to the review of this, 7+ gets a purchase by me ...

    /desperate for a proper 'game' without guns, guns, and yet more guns and a pallette containing some primary colours ....

  • bonker #12 5 years ago

    8.5/10 at IGN!

    Thank god for that, now I have something to play during December ....

  • Psychotext #13 5 years ago

    [link url=htt p://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages4/932328.asp
    ]http://ww w.gamerankings.com/htmlpages4/9...[/link]

    Reviews

  • Steroyd #14 5 years ago

    What are you talking about Bonker a score of 8 seems to be crap score on these sites.

  • lennon #15 5 years ago

    lol I can see the as good as (insert favourite game title here) then posts now :)

  • spongebob #16 5 years ago

    IGN knows nothing.

  • peterfll #17 5 years ago

    Strange, another flagship title with no region coding. Exactly who decides - the publisher (I would have thought this) or the developer? And in this case, if it's the developer MS themselves are making the game region free? But not others.

    It makes no sense.

  • KiLlerKnight #18 5 years ago

    Nothing strange about it, the US version is almost as expensive as the PAL version. Isn't really worth buying from the US, just like GoW, unless you can't wait a few days.
    The Asian version will probably be region locked, just like GoW, and that is the version that really matters considering the price difference. MS are hardly doing us any favour, just like the damn EA and 2K. That's another reason why I like Ubisoft so much, their 360 games are region-free. I bought some region-free games I otherwise wouldn't buy if they were not region-free, so I think it doesn't necessarily mean less income for the publishers.
    BTW you can order Viva Pinata cheaply on dvdcrave.
    Edited by 1 at 13/11/06 @ 14:00

  • Darren #19 5 years ago

    I've decided I can most definitely wait for Viva Pinata.

    I still have all the releases from the last two weeks to play through including Call of Duty 3, F.E.A.R., SmackDown vs. Raw 2007, NFS: Carbon and Tiger Woods 07 and have just found out that Gameplay.com are sending out Tony Hawk's Project 8 today! With Gears of War likely to arrive on Wednesday, I really won't have time to play anything else but by 1st December, I should have played most of those games to death and so Viva Pinata along with Rainbow Six Vegas will be more than welcome! :)

    Importing is nice but this with so many other quality releases out at the same time, I'm glad that Viva Pinata isn't out this month.

  • Harlequeen #20 5 years ago

    Owen-B ... from your suggestion.

    videogamesplus.ca

    I had had it preordered on play, but they had it cheaper. Plus it does seem to be the pointless SE. One episode of the cartoon being the only real feature I think.

  • The-Bodybuilder #21 5 years ago

    >"New IP's don't sell unless it's a shooters of sorts."

    Like dead rising?

  • jonsaan #22 5 years ago

    Jeepers, and to think I thought I had problems when it came to buying too many games. Some of you guys are much worse! Thanks! I feel better now..

  • Psychotext #23 5 years ago

    You wait til they give Viva a 5 in the review. :p

  • KiLlerKnight #24 5 years ago

    Owen B:

    Because you haven't heard of them doesn't mean they are not great. Their games are Pal, and they often have good bargains. And by my calculations they are cheaper than Tronix in the case of Viva Pinata. I don't see how unfriendly their postage is. Yes if you choose FedEx or something, but as I said if you and your real men (posting in a game forum means you are a real man obviously LOL) can't wait, feel free to buy from Tronix or anywhere you want, I don't really care.

  • bonker #25 5 years ago

    >>What are you talking about Bonker a score of 8 seems to be crap score on
    >>these sites.

    :)

    I guess the fanboys have run outta steam by now :)

    Popular opinion seems to rate this at 8+ which is more than good enough for me for a game with some actual old fashioned (out of fashion?) gameplay in it and more than a whiff of originality to boot.

    Of course, a game like this is, and should be, scored via a differing set of parameters than something like GOW etc. FPS/TPS games are to be measured relatively against each other and with the passage of time, reviewers must raise the bar and score appropriately. Something showing genuine originality can expect to have an extra point or two added purely for that and that's exactly how it should be ...

    The game is dead, long live the game!

  • Psychotext #26 5 years ago

    "Something showing genuine originality can expect to have an extra point or two added purely for that and that's exactly how it should be ..."

    That's fine, as long as they stick to it and not start saying things like "we thought the use of the colour blue on the 5th level was particularly original..." just so they can give excellent games (that break no new ground) a good score. Personally I'll take refinement over innovation but that's another story.

  • bloodflowers #27 5 years ago

    I was interested in this, but now - I'm not.

    If you go to marketplace, you'll find a paid download for VP already. Except, it's already on your disc of course. Sigh. This is the first of a rumoured 700 or so bits of DLC. Hopefully that's a misprint and it was 70. Even then, how many exactly are already on the disc, like these overpriced hats are?

    No Rare, I think not. Fuck off.

  • bonker #28 5 years ago

    "That's fine, as long as they stick to it and not start saying things like "we thought the use of the colour blue on the 5th level was particularly original..." just so they can give excellent games (that break no new ground) a good score. Personally I'll take refinement over innovation but that's another story. "

    Sure and refinement is something that, I guess, GOW will have been marked up on, i.e. as the best example of a known genre/gameplay but you can only add so much polish to something before the differences become minute but I guess the same could be said for originality :)

  • neosalad #29 5 years ago

    the ASIAN version IS NOT region FREE
    only the US one.. just like Gears Of War.
    unless play-asia are lying to us for soem reason :(

  • absolutezero #30 5 years ago

    Chinese Ninety-Nine Nights was locked, while the American was region Free aswell. Seems to be a Microsoft Studio thing.

    Make the American one Region Free while the cheaper Chinese version is locked.