Viva Piņata PC dated

By Tom Bramwell Published 1 November, 2007

Prepare your hearts.

Following on from yesterday's exciting news about Viva Piņata: Party Animals squaring up to roundly smash the hanging casket of our dreams over the fires of despair, Microsoft has announced that Viva Piņata will be released on PC on 16th November as well!

Available for both Windows XP and Vista, it's part of the "Games for Windows" motherbrand, which means that - like the Xbox 360 version from last year - it will have 1000 Gamerpoints to unlock by doing clever things like getting the animals to have it off and getting all the totem pole bits.

Viva Piņata is, if you want to be humourless about it, a garden management game where you have to try and attract lots of friendly piņata animals to come live with you by satisfying their fussy requirements. You can also famously get them to mate and create baby piņata, and if you smash one egg at the right time you can make one with two heads, and then three, and you should give money to the beggar too. It's also got the loveliest music and graphics of anything we can remember since the good old days before dropships and normal mapping and EA Trax.

Look out for our (barring any last-minute catastrophes) excitable review of the PC version, developed by Climax, since we should probably mention that, in the very near future! Or, read our Viva Piņata Xbox 360 review to find out why we found it so charming in the first place.

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 (13) Latest comment 4 years ago

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

  • dsmx #1 4 years ago

    How can you justify purchasing an xbox 360 when microsoft put all it's decent games on the PC? Looks like I was right to build a gaming PC over purchasing a xbox360 plus a HDTV.
    Edited by 1 at 01/11/07 @ 10:34

  • gamingdave #2 4 years ago

    Because a 360 is a lot cheaper, the games come out a lot earlier, you can play it comfortably from your sofa, and you dont need to worry about drivers and updating the machine.

  • Killerbee #3 4 years ago

    How can you justify purchasing an xbox 360 when microsoft put all it's decent games on the PC?

    I think there's definitely a lot to be said for this argument.

    Yes, a 360 is cheaper than a good gaming PC, but when you account for the fact that PC games are significantly cheaper and you get access to PC only games (like Crysis) too, and you've got better graphics and superior mouse and keyboard control for FPS games, it's not like you're not getting any value out of the extra initial outlay.

    Then again, I'm not entirely convienced Viva Pinata will feel as "at home" on the PC as it does on a console. Some games just work a lot better on a big telly from the comfort of your sofa than on a monitor sitting at a desk, so maybe there's a good argument for both...
    Edited by 1 at 01/11/07 @ 10:47

  • dsmx #4 4 years ago

    I think this game will be more at home on the PC as lots of kids have access to PC's as long as the recommended specs aren't stupidly high it will probably do a lot better on the PC.

    Further to this by waiting a few months you get a better version than thee xbox 360, you get better controls, you get mods and it costs less. Remind me again why it's worth getting the xbox 260 versions of games?
    Edited by 1 at 01/11/07 @ 11:06

  • myiagros #5 4 years ago

    Some games just work a lot better on a big telly from the comfort of your sofa than on a monitor sitting at a desk

    I agree with that statement, hence why i play my PC games on my big telly, while sitting on the sofa, sometimes even using a 360 pad.

  • Steroyd #6 4 years ago

    It could be the equivalent as the Sims... hey wait... Viva Pinata on PC! o_O

  • Xerx3s #7 4 years ago

    Oh dear. Some people just have their head in the sand, don't they. A machine literally buried in 8/10 or higher games atm and they come in here to gloat how a year old port suddenly makes it redundant.

    How sad.

  • Lee #8 4 years ago

    Can anyone who's played this on the Xbox comment on how much of a "kids" game this is? Does it provide a decent challenge, or is it all just about playing with cute animals?

  • Lemming81 #9 4 years ago

    Looking forward to this. This was the one game that made me sad I didn't have a 360 - now that's no longer a problem. Yay! :)

  • bigbadbeasty #10 4 years ago

    I found the 360 controls a bit sluggish. I remember thinking- "This would be great on PC".

    I will look forward to buying this again, with 'proper' controls :p

  • Cylinder #11 4 years ago

    I think it's generally true that if you have a half-decent PC there's little need for a 360. Just glancing over the top Xbox titles on "http://ww w.metacritic.com/games/xbox360/... and most of them are already on PC. It's only if you're into more arcadey games that the 360 is a better option with all the arcade racers/sport/beat 'em ups games it has.
    Edited by 1 at 01/11/07 @ 12:09

  • skillian #12 4 years ago

    It's also got the loveliest music and graphics of anything we can remember since the good old days before dropships and normal mapping and EA Trax.

    Either this line doesn't really make sense, or this game has the greatest graphics of any game ever made :/

  • smelly #13 4 years ago

    (devils advocate)

    >Because a 360 is a lot cheaper,

    Dont aggree. I just built a fairly high spec pc for less than the 360 with all the gubbins.. and i can do more with it

    >the games come out a lot earlier,

    okay you got me there.. Even though most of the best 360 games are already available on pc.

    >you can play it comfortably from your sofa,

    I have my pc plugged into my hdtv for FULL hidef 1080p. As opposed to the 360 where pretty much all the games run at 720.

    >and you dont need to worry about drivers and updating the machine.

    And you DONT need to patch 360 games?
    Edited by 1 at 01/11/07 @ 21:58