Piñata Party Animals on Live

By Robert Purchese Published 21 September, 2007

Quick, break them.

Microsoft wants you to celebrate the weekend with a bunch of papery garden dwellers, as it makes a new Live demo for Viva Piņata Party Animals available.

It bumbles around the place at 971.17MB, and aims to give you and up-to three chums a good old eyeful of the mini-game compilation based on the animated television series - part of the franchise-building madness that brought us really rather good Rare offering Viva Piņata.

Party Animals is due out this Christmas and boasts over 40 mini-games in total. These will have you doing all sorts of bizarre things like racing around town, burping boats down a stream, and smashing up innocent gardens.

Head over to our Viva Piņata Party Animals gamepage for more information.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (21) Latest comment 4 years ago

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

  • BBIAJ #1 4 years ago

    Good family fun this, except... I don't have a family...

  • DonnieDarko333 #2 4 years ago

    Great Xmas Game! Though as my family is extremely small and we're all adults, we may opt for the 360 quiz game with the buzzers!

  • barnard666 #3 4 years ago

    yes

  • bdgr #4 4 years ago

    a party minigame? and its not on the wii?! What's going on with that then!!!! :D

  • Darren #5 4 years ago

    The two Mad Dash Racing-a-like levels are kind of fun (the tearing is unacceptable though!) but the rest of the mingames are complete cack. Shame really because it does look very nice visually. Unlike last year's Viva Pinata, this one is for the kids I think!

  • cyacomini #6 4 years ago

    Fusion Frenzy with animals then>?

  • Xerx3s #7 4 years ago

    For a party game it's quite nice and the VP mood is definitely there but I just can't play these games anymore. Still, great stuff if you have kids by the look of the demo.

  • menage #8 4 years ago

    I actually liked it more than a normally like party games. My girlfriend already claimed it as her Christmas present. The races were fun, as was the wack the pinata and the last one with the bad guys. Burping and fuse not so much.

    Looks better than your average party game as well.

    In all fairness, Why isn't this a full blown kart-racer. There's a distinct lack of that on 360 as well!, and it would probably sell a lot more.
    Edited by 1 at 21/09/07 @ 13:34

  • sugapunk #9 4 years ago

    @cyacomini: No, this is far better than Fuzion Frenzy. Also has more mini-games too. And two added little ingredients: Familiarity and Personality.

  • jynxce #10 4 years ago

    Was pleasantly surprise by the quality of it. The little taste of the mini games already surpassed what Nintendo has been spoon feeding us over the yrs with Mario Party by being online in it's 1st iteration.

    MS does what Nintendon't... lol
    Edited by 1 at 21/09/07 @ 13:40

  • homerramone #11 4 years ago

    I just looked - I dont see this available :-(

  • Danoxth #12 4 years ago

    As a self confessed addict of Viva Pinata (had to lend my copy to a friend after a few days of constant playing) am I safe in playing this or can it be played without being sucked in to much :x

  • Rirekon #13 4 years ago

    Going to give it a try, I have dire feelings about it though

  • menage #14 4 years ago

    "I just looked - I dont see this available :-( "

    In the bringing it home dep.

  • dk_rare #15 4 years ago

    Burping boats down streams ^_^ See, eurogamer can be funny while only stating the facts =D

  • ronuds #16 4 years ago

    When this was first announced, I thought it would just be the same thing basically as VP. Sounds like it's completely different though...and in a good way!

    Good job, MS!

  • barnard666 #17 4 years ago

    I was dissapointed, I had high hopes for it...at least the demo seems to let you play a quarter of the game! it's a rental for an evening of fun with friends at best...a full price purchase? not for me...and I was expecting to buy it too.

  • Agent_Llama #18 4 years ago

    Why can't I see the demo?!

  • RazorObsession #19 4 years ago

    loved viva pinata for its depth and multiple layers.

    this on the other hand is rather straight forward, and played by myself wasn't much fun at all. maybe multiplayer is the point, but the events were pretty shit.

  • Danoxth #20 4 years ago

    If you can't see the demo check out "bringing it home" it's hidden away in there.

    Just had a quick play through it and quite enjoyed it, the races seemed to be great fun more than anything else and it is a shame that there is no stand alone race mode (that I know of) as it really is great fun, sort of like a Mario Kart with...well..pinata's.

    Multiplayer is what the game is all about though, but if it can keep me entertained through the length of the demo on single player it looks good for multiplayer side of things, here's hoping anyhow.

  • fattulip #21 4 years ago

    Downloaded and played it with my two kids (6 and 4). It was on for a significant portion of the weekend. If it keeps them interested then it will be a 'buy' for our household. Best game? The bomb hot potato style round. Excellent fun.