Viva Piñata: Party Animals

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Viva Piñata: Party Animals
Reviewed By: gp_Monkey

I like cuteness, so when I sat down to play Viva Piñata: Party Animals, I knew I wouldn’t be let down in that department. And even though I was a little let down in the game play department, the look and feel of this game was super impressive.

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The characters are vibrantly techno-coloured and adorable to the max. I was impressed with the little tissue paper details and the way that they moved. The race tracks and most of the mini games settings are equally cheery and cute (I particularly liked the “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” game with a spinning floor of Zumbugs wiggling their butts)!

I’ll admit, the races in this game are pretty fun. Although, I would like to see a few more power ups. The ones that are included are pretty standard but still feel fun. There are some power ups that pour goo all over your opponents’ screens and make it difficult to navigate, and other power ups that cause you to speed ahead (via wings, rockets or burping).

The only one that aggravated me to no end was the flash bomb, which when it went off, blinded not only my piñata but me as well! Most of the tracks are pretty easy to get through – the only problem I found was that on some of them, I didn’t know what was out of bounds and what wasn’t.

The boundaries weren’t obviously defined the whole way through so I would end up running into an “invisible corner” problem and be stuck, then have to wait till the game reset me on the track. In two-player mode the split-screen made it even more difficult to determine where the boundaries were on some of the tracks because the edges were cut off. I didn’t have a chance to play four-player mode, but I think that the racetracks would be better suited to that situation.

Each race is followed by some mini games (you can select the number of races and mini games that you want to play before you start). Many of the mini games are Piñata-themed versions of popular games that we all played growing up, such as the previously mentioned Pin the Tail on the Donkey, or Hot Potato (this time with an exploding “potato” that you try to hold as long as you dare for candy before it blows up).

A downfall of the mini games is that often something small will change from the last time you played it, but then the controls will change so much that you can’t figure out why you’re not accomplishing anything.

For example, one game had me tapping A as fast as I could, and then in the next version of the game I was to hold A down. The control differences are always mentioned in the instructions that come before the mini game, but I found myself looking at the game preview and thinking “oh, I’ve played this one before, I tap A all the way through.” So I guess you gotta pay close attention.

One improvement that would have made the game flow a little easier for me would be to allow the player to click through the “total candiosity” screen, which is a scoreboard. The point tallying is a little slow and the commentary can run a bit long and be very repetitive by your third or fourth race. It would be nice to hit A and get the final totals without the enforced suspense. Luckily you can skip the opening commentary that comes before each race.

This game will be most appealing to the younger players in the family. Older players might have fun with it as well, but will probably find the mini games kinda repetitive. The game hands out a lot of achievements very easily, so it will be rewarding for younger players as well. I found that even though I’m really bad at party games, I felt like I was good because I was unlocking so many achievements, games and racetracks without too much effort.

ENTER now for your chance to WIN!

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