"Viva Piñata from Rare"

The more I read about this the more I think that MS have something potentially mahoosive on their hands. The cartoon is due to go out in september on the Fox network, and bearing in mind the bucks MS have to spend on marketing before the show kicks off I reckon it will be pretty damn big. This should set them up nicely for Christmas, when the price of the 360 will likely drop a bit and the PS3 will be difficult for chrimbo present buying parents to find. Could be a winner, maybe... The only drawback I can see is the market for the show and merchandise is significantly younger than the usual 360 gamer, and will parents shell out the cash when little Timmy already has a PS2 or Xbox anyway?

A good move on their part anyway, IMHO

If this wasn't made by Rare and was made by some kerrazy Japanese company, you'd be falling over yourselves to sing its praises of course. :)

Looks intruiging, IMO. The graphics look pretty lovely, and it COULD be good. Bear in mind it's made for kids though, so any "It looks kiddy lol" shit is stupid.

What, kerrazy?

Anyone else hoping for a Conker's style sudden change in direction? Not that I enjoyed fighting shit but the early shots of Conker's were so ridiculously kiddie you knew something was up.

This looks a lot better.



Edited by Flightrisker at 15:02:51 18-03-2006

I thought this looked really nice at the MS conference, normally I'm not a massive fan of Rare's characters but I thought the littel critters looked great. Not sure this game is aimed at me, but I'll be interested to read some hands-on impressions.

EDIT: The massive Live trailer gives a bit better idea of what the games like. It seems you can build your garden from an empty dusty patch of land, digging ponds/rivers and planting flower, trees and grass.

Looks nice, but my main worry is how it would keep me interested after the first few hours.

Edited by Trip SkyWay at 07:22:44 10-05-2006

I still think this is going to be huge, having watched the footage my confidence has grown a lot. I actually laughed out loud just watching the character model stand there, which has got to be a good sign. Looking forward to seeing the LIVE footage later

I'd say it was a kiddie game with mass appeal. Think Harvest Moon but with glorious graphics and animals made of paper. It's worth a look if only to see what Rare are up to

given the popularity of games like animal crossing, this could be a surprise hit - depends how they integrate it with Live. Also lets not forget that there's a TV show apparently going to be launched along side it.

Could be interesting e.g. kids watch TV show on Sat morning - it introduces a new character - later on while playing on 360 - that same character is automatically downloaded in the background through Live and strolls into your garden - kid goes screaming to his mom with excitement

sport wrote:
Could be interesting e.g. kids watch TV show on Sat morning - it introduces a new character - later on while playing on 360 - that same character is automatically downloaded in the background through Live and strolls into your garden - kid goes screaming to his mom with excitement

This is the kind of thing that will differentiate the game and aid its success. It's really interesting stuff! Live realtime virtual mechandising, I mean you've got to doff your cap to MS for that. The concept is brilliant

Watched this trailer today, looks incredible, imo. 60 different species! The idea of being able to go to other's world á la WW is a great touch. Looks gorgeous and if it lives up to this early promise, it'll be the first XBox game I can think to appeal to a) my wife, b) teh k1ddies, c) chavs and d) me.

:)

morriss wrote:
my wife

Is you wife into games? If not I'd avoid it. I showed the trailer to my girlfriend after trying to explain it was a game about pinatas who visit a garden that you build and that other people can visit... Now she keeps saying stuff like "can we have pinatas in our garden?" and just ripping the piss basically. She has a habit of laughing at my games, she found the aliens in KOTOR fucking hilarious, she used to impersonate them while I was playing which was funny for about the first minute ;)

My missus takes the piss, too. The only 'game' she's actually tried to learn to play is Pikmin. This one does appeal to her, though. She wants to "play it together" when it comes out. So there's a mini-positive.

Well I'm 26 and this is the main reason I got a 360 other than Blue Dragon so it certainly sold me.

Looks like a cross between Animal Crossing and Harvest moon but with better graphics.

Hopefully it will have more of HM gameplay I'm addicted to that at the moment.

Please don't overlook it because it appears "kiddie"!

I still like the character design and general "look" of the game - probably not one for me as I really didn't enjoy or see the point of Animal Crossing DS. Although, depending how strategic and involved the "garden management" side of the game is and how well characterised the little critters are, I could see myself actually enjoying this.

Rares sense of humour does seem to be a bit lacking of late.

Though that shopkeeper in Kameo cracked me up: "'Saving the world?'Pah! Thats the oldest excuse in the book! You'll pay full price." Said in a yorkshire accent by an ambulatory plant.

Hmm, but how many times has there been some company trying to recreate the success of Pokemon? And how many have even got near the mark? Even the torrent of Japanese wannabes failed, and 4kids? Oh dear...

The Viva Pinata hype machine has started... Here's a brief trailer for the TV show. I still think this could be a big franchise for MS

smoothpete wrote:
The Viva Pinata hype machine has started... Here's a brief trailer for the TV show. I still think this could be a big franchise for MS

From the comments section:
"
Fromh0lland (1 month ago)
This video made me LOOSE my sexuality

"
>:I

Daryoon wrote:
Hmm, but how many times has there been some company trying to recreate the success of Pokemon? And how many have even got near the mark? Even the torrent of Japanese wannabes failed, and 4kids? Oh dear...

Mushiking. Okay, not Pokemon levels of success, but near enough to the mark to be satisfactory, I would say.

If it's anything like AC:WW it'll attract a lot of women/girls which'll be the first X360 to do so if true.

An intersting hands-on.

This really does sound like fun.

albundy wrote:

djchump wrote:
I quite like those character designs :-)

Makes a change from ANOTHER "gritty urban gang" game where you play some black guy who obviously has lots of guns and kills lots of people.

When I suggest that the only reason people are so down on San Andreas is due to their inner racist tendencies coming to the fore, they get all defensive. Well, here it is.

It's not racist, it's a fact. How is pointing out that a man is black being racist.

Oh god, I'm white! zOMG!

albundy wrote:


PS. If this game were on the Wii, you would all be crying "TEH ORIGINAL AND TEH NEW GAMES!!11!!1".

Bloody hell. Every, single, thread. Why?

Let people not be interested. It's ok. As long as you enjoy it, then it's fine.

albundy wrote:
I'm not interested in VP. Not in the slightest. I'm just saying.

I'm not sure I see what you're getting at...

Lex_Luthor wrote:

albundy wrote:
I'm not interested in VP. Not in the slightest. I'm just saying.

I'm not sure I see what you're getting at...

Now you've done it.

albundy wrote:
I'm not interested in VP. Not in the slightest. I'm just saying.

So don't post here please. Go on, as a favour to me?

thefilthandthefury wrote:

albundy wrote:

djchump wrote:
I quite like those character designs :-)

Makes a change from ANOTHER "gritty urban gang" game where you play some black guy who obviously has lots of guns and kills lots of people.

When I suggest that the only reason people are so down on San Andreas is due to their inner racist tendencies coming to the fore, they get all defensive. Well, here it is.

It's not racist, it's a fact. How is pointing out that a man is black being racist.

Oh god, I'm white! zOMG!

lol - I was more pointing out the widespread misrepresentation of black people in lots of games - i.e. a black character in a game is, more often than not, shown as a criminal or violent gun-crazed psycho.

Nice of albundy to try and turn that into me being racist, rather than the games that portray all black and hispanic people as gangsters ;-)

morriss wrote:
An intersting hands-on.

This really does sound like fun.

+1

yes morriss the game seems like a lot of fun. I too am interested in this game.

You know it's coming don't you. It's all too eerily silent!