In a change to your regular feature, this week Luke Mears takes the reins of the Thoroughly Underrated Games You Should Probably Play to bring you a look at an oft overlooked gem on the Xbox 360.

Anyone that has ever listened to The Newb Review Podcast, or read any of The Newb Review Shop Bargain articles Luke has written, will probably have an idea of what his selection of criminally underrated titles are. Ok, enough stalling; without further ado, let’s take a trip to Piñata Island in Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise.

Never let it be said that there is no heart in modern gaming. Sure, the biggest blockbuster game of all time is all about shooting foreign people in the face, and the Xbox 360’s flagship exclusive titles are all about blowing aliens in to a fine paste.

But if you were to venture into your local games retailer and wade through all the games about burley space marines soaked in lashings of blood, if you’re really lucky then you might just find one of the best family friendly games available on any console.

Made by legendary British developers Rare (makers of Goldeneye, Banjo Kazooie, and Perfect Dark on the N64) the Viva Piñata series represents a concerted effort on Microsoft’s part to establish a kid-friendly franchise.

The original game was launched alongside an animated TV show, that in all fairness was actually quite good for what it was, but never really managed to capture the imagination of the mass market.

While most of the creatures are based on real life animals, there are a few mythical beasties in the mix too.

The premise of the game is simple; you are a new occupant of a patch of scrubland on Piñata Island. Piñata Island is a very special place where various types of living Piñata roam in the wild. As the caretaker of the land it is up to you to clear out the land and grow crops in order to attract different species of Piñata.

Each species is based on an actual animal (although there are a few fictional animals hidden away in there too) and is made out of colourful strips of paper, and filled with sweets. Because of their sweet nature the creatures have names that are puns based on sweet foods, such as the Profitamole and the Fudgehog.

As well as having amusing names, the Piñatas are exceptionally well designed by the team at Rare. While the Piñata cannot speak, they each have their own distinctive grunt, which makes identifying them at a distance very easy.

While it has a very strong kid friendly aesthetic, you would be wrong to think that Viva Piñata is a game exclusively for kids. The work involved in maintaining and expanding your garden can be quite complicated, especially considering that you can only put a certain amount of stuff in your garden.

As you progress you unlock more and more types of Piñata and much like any ecosystem, each Piñata has a role to play. For instance, the first Piñata you unlock is a Whirlm, a bright orange worm.

In order to unlock the next Piñata, the Sparrowmint (a sparrow), you need to amass a certain number of worms for your Sparrowmints to eat. However, once you have two members of the same species, the only way to increase their numbers is through breeding.

Even Sasgorillas need love

Don’t worry, there’s nothing smutty about the breeding in Viva Piñata. By matching certain criteria, such as giving your Piñata a specific outfit, or growing the right crop, you can make your Piñata get in the mood for romance.

Once a heart shaped icon is above their head, simply lead on Piñata to the other. This will initiate a maze based mini game in which you take control of your Piñata and steer them towards their partner, collecting love hearts along the way.

Once the pair are reunited, they retire to a secluded spot and perform a romance dance. This is not a euphemism by the way. Each species has their own unique dance, such as line dancing and tap dancing.

While the first game was moderately aimless (beyond the whole “catch as many as you can!” angle) the sequel, Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, introduced a number of brilliant new features to the game, including an actual purpose behind your Piñata hunting.

You see, Professor Pester, the Big Bad in the series, attempted to steal all of the Piñata information from the Piñata island database, but somehow managed to delete all of the data. So it’s up to you, the newest resident on the island, to capture all of the Piñata and send them to parties all around the world in order to repair the database.

The character designs are exceptionally cute and charismatic

A new challenge mode was added to the game which required specific Piñata, such as a Horstachio wearing a pirate hat. These challenges added an extra sense of structure to the game and really gave the player something to work towards.

Viva Piñata has always had a small but passionate fan base, and a focus on the community was introduced in Trouble in Paradise. Players could take photographs of their Piñata and upload them to the Viva Piñata website for other players to admire and covet.

In a feature that was designed to accommodate the more charitable players in the Viva Piñata community, you can even upload your Piñata to the website for other players to download through a print out card based system.

Here I offer my own Sasgorilla, based on Hercule Poirot, for any reader to use as they please.

The basic premise of this feature is that the Piñata’s basic information is translated into a barcode, which can then be printed out and scanned using the Xbox Live Vision Camera (and presumably the soon to launch Project Natal, or whatever they’re calling it these days).

While this obviously offers an unparalleled possibility for cheating, it is a brilliant feature for those that perhaps do not have the skill and abilities to unlock certain Piñata.

The game features 2 player local co-op (perfect for parents to help their children with tending to their garden, or for couples to find a new reason to argue with each other) and up to 4 player online co-op, so if your child or partner is struggling then there really is no excuse for not diving in and giving them a hand.

The only problem I had with Trouble in Paradise is that it felt very much the same as the original game for the first few hours. It’s not until the new areas of Piñata Island, the Pintarctic and the Dessert Desert, are unlocked along with the dozen or so new Piñata, that this begins to feel like an entirely new game.

However, if you’re entirely new to the series then there really is no better place to start thanks to a ton of new features, tweaked controls, and a new found structure that the original game was sorely missing.

You can dress your Pinata up in a number of amusing outfits.

Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise is one of those rare sequels (excuse the pun) that takes the original game, one that we all felt was magnificent, and improve on it in every way imaginable. The real sticking point for me is that as much as I loved the original Viva Piñata, I simply cannot play it anymore thanks to the advances that Rare have made in Trouble in Paradise. I don’t think there’s a better compliment that you can give a game than that.

Viva Piñata Trouble in Paradise was released on the Xbox 360 in late 2008. It is available to buy from The Newb Review Store for a mere £5.65 as of writing this article. Do yourself a favour and pick up a copy.

–Luke Mears–