Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise [X360]

In 2006 Microsoft development studio Rare surprised everyone when it delivered the innovative Viva Pinata as an Xbox 360 exclusive. With its colorful critters, surprisingly deep gameplay and near universal appeal, Viva Pinata was a virtual pet game, a complex simulation and a whimsical children's title all wrapped up in one paper mache package.

Viva was a successful first visit to Pinata Island, but there were a few things fans felt were missing from the original that Rare wanted to address with a follow-up. The result is Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise, a sequel of sorts that provides a nearly identical experience to that of its predecessor with a few new features thrown in to make it even better.

Like so many great videogames, the premise of the Viva Pinata series is both simple and ridiculous. You're a gardener given a square plot of ground to shape however you see fit, and your efforts are rewarded by the arrival of colorful piņata animals. Once in motion, this bizarre ecosystem grows in complexity until the loveable Bunnycombs you grew a special patch of carrots for are being hungrily stalked by predatory Pretztails, who break your bunnies open and devour the candy inside. Just like the brutal dog-eat-dog world of real gardening.

Get to know your pinatas' likes and dislikes and you'll soon have a garden full of them to do with as you please. Each piņata has requirements for visiting and taking up residence in your little plot. For example, Squazzils have an eye for hazelnuts, and Doenuts prefer tall grass. As you plant things, decorate your garden and raise piņatas, you'll level up and increase both the size of your garden and the amount of tools and toys at your disposal. Make your piņatas happy and you can get them to "romance," which magically produces a baby pinata if everything goes to plan.

That's the way things worked in Viva Pinata, and it's exactly the same this go-round. There's a more fleshed-out storyline this time (the database of piņatas has been wiped out and it's up to you to restore it), but it's largely in the background. The engine is the same, the helper-characters are the same, and all the original piņatas are back. But with 32 new species to attract and two new areas to explore, there's more to like in Trouble in Paradise. By clicking on signposts at the edges of your main garden, you'll be transported to either the sandy Dessert Desert or the ice-cold Pinarctic, two new environments where many of the new creatures can be found.

Once there, you'll see various critters wandering around ready to be trapped. Choose a trap, buy some bait and watch the poor curious suckers stroll up to check things out. Spring your trap, and if you're lucky you'll soon have a Pengum, Flapyak or Vulchurro to call your very own. And although you can't turn either extreme area into a satellite garden, you can bring elements of both into your main garden. As you gain more experience and level up, you'll gain access to ice and sand and can turn sections of your garden into homes away from home for your captured animals.

As with much of the Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise experience, snaring innocent piņatas and spiriting them away to your personal menagerie feels a bit wrong, but it's addictive and oddly satisfying too. That's because the piņatas in Trouble in Paradise are so damned cute that you just can't help but covet them. Seeing a particularly picky piņata wandering at the edges of your garden, refusing to enter unless you meet its stringent requirements, can be a great motivator to finally get that row of gooseberry bushes planted.