Viva Piñata(Rare)

The Xbox 360, much like America, is good at spectacle and war - so it's nice to see a British company like Rare producing a little oasis in the 360's war-torn playing fields. Viva Piñata gives you a small allotment of land to model as you wish: you can dig ponds, plant flowers and trees, make paths, generally get to experience all the green-fingered satisfaction real people do, only without having to go out in the cold.

The main draw here though, are the black and white creatures that roam around your garden until their interest is piqued. When you start, you'll have nothing but dirt in your garden, but it's enough to convince your first Pinata, the Whirlm, to come and stay. The black and white little worm suddenly explodes in technicolour, and a little message at the bottom of the screen tells you you have a new resident. You're delighted, you call him Billy Idol and buy him some shades.

Then things get complicated. You see, as much as this is a game designed for kids, very early on you realise that the game has a real dark side. Example: You're only half hour in, happily watering your plants and watching your Whirlms hang out. You notice a Sparrowhawk hanging about outside the garden. You of course want to attract him in, so you check the encyclopedia to see what requirements you need to meet so that he'll become a resident. Halfway through the explanation realisation dawns, but now it's too late. A message pops up at the bottom of the screen: 'A piñata is about to be eaten'. Billy Idol the Whirlm is a goner, and Sparrowhawk no.1 is now a resident of your garden.

You're not building a garden here, you're building an ecosystem. This is survival of the fittest. You want a Pretztail (fox) in your garden? You better be prepared to lay some of those cute little Bunnycombs (rabbits) on the stone altar and let the foxes rip out their sweets. It doesn't end in sacrifice either, to breed your Piñata you have to buy them a house, and meet all their romantic demands. You then get a little cut scene of their romance dance, which is cute. Within no time, you have a new little baby piñata. Awww! Then of course someone eats mummy piñata and all you have left is daddy and son or daughter, and you have to keep romancing...

It's surprising. This game totally took me by surprise. There is an incredible amount of depth here, and should you last past the first hour of hardcore tutorial, you'll begin to ease into the holiday style rhythm of the game, You'll start to enjoy the weather cycles, the rain effects. You'll relax and you won't want to leave. The lure of the next piñata will keep you glued to the game for hours on end, and with promises of new content available to download from Xbox Live in the future, even when you've wooed all of the piñata, there's always going to be something to lure you back, if only to take a break from the regular videogame noise and watch the wonderfully rendered sunset going down over your little electric world.