So, I've been in Indiana for about a week now. I flew out on Xmas Eve and arrived later that day without any particular incident. Since then, I've mostly been relaxing and playing video games. I will talk about those games in the coming days, but first I would like to talk about the game that I finished most recently before leaving: Viva Piñata.

Viva Piñata is an open-ended game. I would compare it most readily to Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing. In the game, you are given a plot of land which has grown fallow and are instructed to make a beautiful garden capable of attracting all manner of piñatas. To that end, you can plant various forms of flora, you can dig lakes, and other such things. Once you've managed to attract some piñatas to your garden, more options open up to you. You can "romance" piñatas. Romancing forces a small minigame, after which the piñatasgo to their racially designated house and perform the "romance dance" which in turn leads to the delivery of a piñata egg by the large woman wearing a stork hat. Also, some piñatas can only be attracted by having other kinds of piñatas in your garden for them to eat. For instance, the Lickatoad will only join your garden if you have a Taffly and it kills and eats it. This sort of progression continues on and up to even the very high level piñatas.

Since the game is open ended without any real victory condition, I had to choose my own. There were two obvious answers. First option: get to level 108. Level 108 would mean doing every possible thing in the game which provides experience. Second option: get all of the achievements in the game. I ended up choosing the second option.

Ultimately, I would say that the game is quite good at being what it is. It is an open-ended time-waster that manages to have a very good sense of humor. It is also old enough that the game can routinely be found for next to nothing. I believe I picked it up for approximately $15 from Newegg several months ago and would expect it to be similarly priced or lower elsewhere.

Published by XPost^GTK+