15th March 2006, 10:11 AM
More interesting details...
Which one of you doubted me when I said this was what Microsoft was doing? Be a man and admit it.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/696/696080p1.html
I can't help but think this is a game that would do well on a Nintendo console. I hope it brings in the audience Microsoft wants. I need to hear some impressions but it certainly does have my attention.
Quote:"While Gears of War is easily one of the most anticipated and most important games of 2006, Viva Piñata is of equal importance to us," said Shane Kim, head of Microsoft Game Studios. "Kameo: Elements of Power showed Rare's ability to go broad with mass appeal, and Viva Piñata spearheads our intent to truly go to the mass market. This is arguably our first true mass-market property, more so than even Halo 2."
Which one of you doubted me when I said this was what Microsoft was doing? Be a man and admit it.
Quote:Viva Piñata is a first-person perspective nurturing game that starts on Piñata Island, a fantasy setting that's filled with 62 different piñata/animals. Each animal is called a piñata, and each one can also break into pieces like a piñata, which eases kids off the whole dying concept. Players create a garden using various tools (the first of which is a shovel), and by cultivating a small patch of land, they attract piñatas to come and visit. The large concept is to restore order to an island that's gone wild, and by creating, maintaining, and expanding their gardens, players are illuminated by a brilliant ecosystem of creatures that have complex relationships with one another. Using a proprietary engine to create simple polygonal shapes painted with primary colors, Rare's single-player title looked early yet inviting when we saw it running last week in San Francisco, Ca.
You start by meeting your navigator/guide, Dedos, a humanoid inhabitant who, like all the other young humanoids on the island, wears an imitation African mask. She guides you along the non-linear path to success. Other human types appear and form Seinfeld-like relationships, which tie into the TV show. Just so you know, the game takes place on one side of the island and the TV show on another. Thus, the two are related and have cross-over, but they're not exact duplicates. Furthermore, the show will hint at how to do things in the game, and the game will refer to the show, practically guaranteeing cross-over demand among young viewers/gamers.
So...how do you play? You start with a shovel from Dedos. Soon after you'll get seeds, a watering can, and you'll even get things such as upgrades to the shovel. The idea is to pat down the ground, "prepping" it for gardening. When you plant seeds and grass grows, you invite wild piñatas to visit. And if they like what they see and get what they need, they'll transform from "wild" to "resident" status (changing from black and white to color), and they'll stay in your garden. Your goal is to create the biggest, most populated garden possible, with all 62 piñatas living there peacefully and having offspring via stork express.
You'll start by attracting a single worm, and then you might attract a second worm, after which you can introduce them to each other. If they like each other, they'll pair up and do a kind of mating dance (really), though just to be clear, piñatas don't make love. All piñata babies are literally brought by a stork. I know what you're thinking, and no I didn't make this up; really. This is Rare's new game. Anyway, each piñata pair has its own courtship dance, which we can say in front of a panel of our peers, is cute.
The ecosystem behind the game is clever, if not genius. After the worms come, attracting other animals occurs in a domino pattern. Birds are attracted to the baby worms, so they'll come as soon as that little thing starts to squirm. You can then plant a turnip to attract mice. Naturally, snakes like mice, so as soon as mice show up, snakes do too. The game is filled with piñata-like animals ranging from ponies, pigs, sheep, crocodiles, horses, hedgehogs, elephants and more.
Of course this little Garden of Eden couldn't be perfect without bad guys. Dubbed the "sours," these piñatas create trouble among your new buddies. They will start fights among species, and when they "die," the candy from inside them will taste bad to resident piñatas. each baddy is also paired with a good guy. Thus, if you've encountered a sour that's causing you grief, you can find its counter piñata to chase it off. The other aspect of Viva Piñata is trading. If your friend owns a 360 and Viva Piñata and he's way ahead of you, he can trade animals via Xbox Live. Or he can come to your house and play cooperatively. Xbox Live and Achievements will play a huge role in the community aspects of Viva Piñata.
The game is apparently huge and can easily take between 20-40 hours, depending on how your garden grows. Microsoft plans on creating downloadable content, both free and paid for, with different kinds of animals appearing and attracting newer, exotic piñatas. Rare's title also has a diurnal/nocturnal cycle, so different creatures appear in the day than at night, and vice versa.
In all honesty, Viva Piñata is a huge surprise, though that's pretty obvious if you follow games. First, Rare really is creating a totally new intellectual property that's going to be both a game and a CG TV show. It's a reality. Second, the demo we saw was primitive and early, but it also looked like an incredibly addictive game. Third, it looks deep and interesting, and despite a little hope that died inside me when I first saw it -- that somehow Rare would create the next Banjo Kazooie or Blast Corps 2, or who knows, the greatest game ever -- the more I watched the demo, the more impressed I was. Perhaps this really is Rare's true calling.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/696/696080p1.html
I can't help but think this is a game that would do well on a Nintendo console. I hope it brings in the audience Microsoft wants. I need to hear some impressions but it certainly does have my attention.
Jak 3 : Jet Set Radio Future : Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee : Final Fantasy XII : Shadow of the Colossus : more to come...
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