How is Viva Pinata, hombre?

Sinatar wrote:
souldaddy wrote:

That first moment you enter the garden, and realize that what you're seeing is not video, is pretty special.

That knocked me clean on my ass. That opening pull in on Leafos looked completely prerendered.

Yeah, easily rivaled anything I've seen in Gears of War.

souldaddy wrote:
Sinatar wrote:
souldaddy wrote:

That first moment you enter the garden, and realize that what you're seeing is not video, is pretty special.

That knocked me clean on my ass. That opening pull in on Leafos looked completely prerendered.

Yeah, easily rivaled anything I've seen in Gears of War.

...I beg to differ.

LobsterMobster wrote:
souldaddy wrote:
Sinatar wrote:
souldaddy wrote:

That first moment you enter the garden, and realize that what you're seeing is not video, is pretty special.

That knocked me clean on my ass. That opening pull in on Leafos looked completely prerendered.

Yeah, easily rivaled anything I've seen in Gears of War.

...I beg to differ.

Yeah, I've got to agree with Lobster on this. Don't get me wrong, I think Viva Pinata is cute and pretty, but I don't think I would put it graphically on the same level as Gears.

I would put it on the same level graphically as Gears of War. While it's not using the "realistic" presentation of Gears of War, the graphics are not one bit less impressive on a technical level.

I have to give the nod to Viva Pinata as the best game on the 360 yet for me. I wish I could play it.

I got this from GameFly yesterday. While I wasn't completely blown away (granted I have no idea what I'm doing) I still managed to stay glued to the TV for 3.5 hours.

My first garden seems to be progressing, although the romance is few and far between. My sparrowmints refuse to eat the whirlms and my fudgebags (or whatever they're called) keep eating their own crap and getting sick. Also sadly, Zapp and Roger my first two Whirlms are missing and I fear dead. I can only hope they are on vacation but it doesn't look good.

Like I said...progress.

There are only a few pinatas that will fight on their own. Otherwise you need to directly instruct one pinata to eat another. The exception is that pinatas that haven't joined your garden yet will hunt whatever prey is required to win them over, and some species (like Lickatoads and Newtgats) just plain don't get along.

I don't have a 360. But as I read this thread about mating pinatas, magic poo, strange woodland creature and Professor Pester, I feel like the acid just kicked in.

Maybe I should get a 360.

my fudgebags (or whatever they're called) keep eating their own crap and getting sick.

The pinatas don't poop ... that I know of, anyways. They only lose candy when they're killed, the "crap" you mention is probably from sour pinatas, they walk in and cough up sour candy once in a while until you convert them.

Larsson wrote:

I don't have a 360. But as I read this thread about mating pinatas, magic poo, strange woodland creature and Professor Pester, I feel like the acid just kicked in.

Maybe I should get a 360.

I'm assuming this game would probably be even more entertaining if I was still friends with Mary Jane!

I finally got romancing cinnamonkeys in the garden. I've given up on my reddhots as a cash flow solution, they're just too difficult to catch, and they spend too much time in the house. Those monkeys, on the other hand, can be romanced like crazy. For the first time now, I've got more cash than I know what to do with. Woohoo! I can now destroy, rebuild, and replant to my heart's content.

SirRockford wrote:

Yeah, I've got to agree with Lobster on this. Don't get me wrong, I think Viva Pinata is cute and pretty, but I don't think I would put it graphically on the same level as Gears.

I'm just talking about that first ingame cutscene. Once you start playing, the effects tone down, but that first cutscene was magic. Anyway, apples and oranges

The Fly wrote:

I finally got romancing cinnamonkeys in the garden. I've given up on my reddhots as a cash flow solution, they're just too difficult to catch, and they spend too much time in the house. Those monkeys, on the other hand, can be romanced like crazy. For the first time now, I've got more cash than I know what to do with. Woohoo! I can now destroy, rebuild, and replant to my heart's content.

Oh, you don't need to romance the reddhots.

As long as you have at least four flowers in your garden, you will constantly get new tafflies if you have less that two currently resident. So as soon as a new taffly comes in, set it on fire, extinguish it, and then sell it after it mutates. You don't need a taffly house or a reddhot house, just a torch.

Nothing could be easier.

I heard on the 1up podcast that Bungie is completely addicted to Viva Pinata, so much that they are writing a strategy guide with 1up for the game.

The Fly wrote:

they spend too much time in the house.

You can tap houses with the shovel and the occupants will come right out.

souldaddy wrote:

I heard on the 1up podcast that Bungie is completely addicted to Viva Pinata, so much that they are writing a strategy guide with 1up for the game.

Great, Halo 3 is now coming in 2008.

LiquidMantis wrote:
The Fly wrote:

they spend too much time in the house.

You can tap houses with the shovel and the occupants will come right out.

I know, but I get tired of that. I want my pinatas meandering around the garden in a candy-addled haze, ready for romancing at my command. Like the Cinnamonkeys. They simply wander about like good-natured zombies.

The Fly wrote:

Like the Cinnamonkeys. They simply wander about like good-natured zombies.

Zombies ready to procreate on demand!

Is this the next evolutionary step from Dead Rising's "erotica" photo shots?

The Fly wrote:

I know, but I get tired of that. I want my pinatas meandering around the garden in a candy-addled haze, ready for romancing at my command. Like the Cinnamonkeys. They simply wander about like good-natured zombies.

The reddhotts seem to be nocturnal - I've had good luck getting them to hang out and play during early morning hours.

My does, on the other hand, they just sleep all day and all night.

I keep building new gardens to try out different ideas. I have 1 garden where I am focusing on getting every variation of every species. It's slow going (the flutterscotches take forever) but I get most of my money there, and I don't have to farm chilies or anything tendious like that. Last night I started a new garden just to see how many pinatas I can get in a short time. Very hectic.

Random question - how do you get your trees to 'mature'? The monkey requires three fully grown trees in the garden before it will become a resident - so I planted them, and they're five days old already, but that doesn't seem good enough. Do I have to do something special to them (some special fertilizer, maybe)?

doihaveto wrote:

Random question - how do you get your trees to 'mature'? The monkey requires three fully grown trees in the garden before it will become a resident - so I planted them, and they're five days old already, but that doesn't seem good enough. Do I have to do something special to them (some special fertilizer, maybe)?

You have to fertilize them twice while they are growing. First when it initially starts grown (after the seed is planted and it's sprouting) and then again about 3/4 of the way through the process the tree will look fairly grown and will kind of "pop" and all it's leaves will go flying, hit it with fertilizer again. The type of fertilizer depends on the tree, but it's color based, so red for apple, brown for hazelnut and so on.

Curse you Certis. Now I'm sucked in.

LiquidMantis wrote:
souldaddy wrote:

I heard on the 1up podcast that Bungie is completely addicted to Viva Pinata, so much that they are writing a strategy guide with 1up for the game.

Great, Halo 3 is going to be about faerie princesses.

Fixed.

My first monkeynut tree matured without any fertilizer. Did take a while. You know they're mature when they no longer require watering. Some of my other trees never seemed to fully mature though; one's kind of withery with dark, stunted leaves and never puts out fruit, and another's leaves turned yellow even though it's fully grown and has produced a good number of fruits in the past.

I want my 360 back! I'm getting the shakes, guys!

Farscry wrote:

:cry: I want my 360 back! I'm getting the shakes, guys!

I hear that Laura Foy is bringing your Xbox back.

Sinatar wrote:
doihaveto wrote:

Random question - how do you get your trees to 'mature'? The monkey requires three fully grown trees in the garden before it will become a resident - so I planted them, and they're five days old already, but that doesn't seem good enough. Do I have to do something special to them (some special fertilizer, maybe)?

You have to fertilize them twice while they are growing. First when it initially starts grown (after the seed is planted and it's sprouting) and then again about 3/4 of the way through the process the tree will look fairly grown and will kind of "pop" and all it's leaves will go flying, hit it with fertilizer again. The type of fertilizer depends on the tree, but it's color based, so red for apple, brown for hazelnut and so on.

A couple of other things on tree growing: You'll know when you've fertilized at the right time because there will be a subtle happy chime sound effect, and when you exit back to the regular garden screen you'll get an "award for bonus growth" alert. If you're fertilizing isn't making a difference you'll hear a different tone.

Different trees need to be fertilized at different times. Most won't take the fertilizer until they've grown a bit. With pine trees, for instance, you can fertilize for bonus growth the first time as soon as you see the first leaflets poking out the top.

Once you get the "special mix" fertilizer you can use it on any tree, but you still have to time it right.

As with all plants, if you dig a hole first, trees will grow quicker.

I highly recommend upgrading to the best possible watering can every chance you can get. The final upgrade (the One Pour Wonder) doesn't overwater and, and with it you only need to water a plant once during its entire growth cycle.

Here's the review from Gametrailers that was just posted - they gave it an 8.0.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.p...

My impressions are simple. My girlfriend loves games, but hated the 360.

I bought almost every game for the 360 to play with my girlfriend. nothing worked. She just started hounding in on her DS Lite, and making me watch horrible CSI every night, while I played everything from Dead Rising to Tony Hawk.

Then, I was in an ebgames I frequent to escape congestion on my long commute, and if the store is empty-ish, they let me make requests for what they put on their in-game system. I jokingly chose Viva Pinata and they put it in hesitantly. I did not know it was by Rare. The screen came on and I was impressed.

The bright colors are vibrant and something you can only really call "immersive." The music was upbeat, and the talking animals were horribly in your face. I cringed.

I started the game, and it is a build a garden and tend the animals you attract game. Then it hit me, you are really a pimp. You pimp these pinatas out, and they come back for the candy. and you get some fightin breaking out in the stable, time to pull out the pimp-cane, um shovel, and bust some candy-ass to feed the rest of the herd. Then, I saw i put my whirlm-hos up in a crib when a john comes along, and they wanna get "ROMANCE" and you have to make it through a maze to get the two to connect. That maze is pull of little bombs, we like to call the "po-po" at my house. clearly these are the cops trying to keep my hos from bringing in the babies. See, you don't get money from the jons, you get BABIES you can sell on the black market. Now that is some real tight economics.

And every once in a while you get a "sour" (undercover lover) come up to the garden, and try to spoil the scene. But if you give them the right bribe, they begin to work for you, and find a way "to help the garden out."

I took it home, and fought the urge not to open her gift. I eventually even wrapped the game in the "sex pages" of the local paper, and handed it to her, pleading my case for how cool this game was. She opened it, and frowned, and said "put it in."

The minute she got a garden, she was hooked, and I have not watched anything but Heroes for a full two weeks.

My girlfriend and I love Viva Pimp-yata... at least the game, it teaches valuable lessons, like:

Everything dies, and life feeds on life.

Never touch your own stash (plant a seed, don't sell it.)

If you sling the right "candy," everyone and everything has a price.

Selling kids on the black market is a great way to keep the population down.

and of course;

If your pet won't behave, hit it with a shovel until it breaks open and eat the candy inside.

And here are some interesting notes and observations aside:

You don't CREATE anything. You ASSEMBLE and arrange your garden. Nothing is called a CREATURE.

You can only have 36 pinatas, in your garden at any time. Visitors too.

To get "Master Romancer" you need 7 in your garden at once, and you CAN BUY THEM ALL.

Don't let that broadband weigh down your pimphand,
Charlie

brightcrazystar wrote:

pimpage

Classic!

Well, looks like I'm right there with you, Farscry. My 360 OD'ed on the cuteness and will no longer boot. I suspect Seedos of foul play. I spotted the guy was nosing around in my garden at night and the next thing I know, the game is hard locked. Someone give him a thwak when you see him for me.

Larsson wrote:

I don't have a 360. But as I read this thread about mating pinatas, magic poo, strange woodland creature and Professor Pester, I feel like the acid just kicked in.

Maybe I should get a 360.

Just kicked in? We all peaked hours ago.