Viva Pinata

Kudos to the seller for the detailed install instructions. Had it up and running on my Windows 10 machine, lickety split. Thanks!

Ok, so the game itself deserves a 5. Just a blanket statement, I've been playing the various forms of Viva Pinata since I first got an X-Box 360 (When was that, 2006 or something crazy?) I have loved this game for that long, but didn't own the PC version until recently.Having played the console games exclusively, I struggled with the controls of this game for a while before learning that you can use an X-Box controller with it.Modern systems should be plenty powerful enough for this game, which still looks good (especially for a game thats over 10 years old. The main issues seem to all stem from Microsoft phasing out Games for Windows Live, which is required for set up. There are guides throughout the web that will lead you through steps to get to the point where the game is playable, but the process is immensely tedious. According to some, the PC version of this game is more likely to have corrupt files due to GFWL malfunctions, but I have not yet experienced any after playing frequently (3-7 hours a day, which is not very healthy). I am able to start the game up and save just fine.Overall, if you have access to the 360, I recommend that version over this. If you have the Xbox One, get Rare Replay, as it contains this game plus many others, including the sequel. If you really need a fixing and require a portable version of the game, this one will make due on laptops, but remember that the set up is tedious and the disc is required to play.

From the eye-catching colors to the fun animation and all the challenges that a sim-type game can provide, Viva Pinata has been lots of fun!There were a few kinks (such as reinstalling video drivers), but only the "corrupted save file" error I could directly blame on Viva Pinata. The fix I found worked was simple: open the hidden AppData folder, then Local/Saved Games/Microsoft/Viva Pinata. There are 2 folders: Profiles and Saves. Check the properties of each folder and uncheck the "Read Only" box for both. (I also had made copies of my saved files to the Desktop, just in case.)I haven't been able to put this game down! The characters are adorable, the art style is unique, and other than the save game hiccup, no complaints!

I bought this game after a friend purchased it and I saw her playing it. I was a bit uneasy based on the colors, thinking it may be geared towards a much younger audience, but honestly, if I was a lot younger, I would have been so confused. This game includes a lot of things similar to games like Farmville and the Sims, but rather than taking care of a family, you try to level up your "Pinata animals" and keep them happy and healthy. You also spend a lot of time meeting new characters and evolving yourself through the world. This game is really great and a lot of fun.The only con I have is that it did run a bit slow on my newer computer until I decreased the graphics down to the bare minimum, but it was still really fun.

My 10 year old son purchased this game because he had it years ago for the Xbox and enjoyed it. He got stuck in the game the same place he got stuck on the Xbox but enjoyed the game and states it is "really good". It is a cute game with good music and enjoyable by all ages.You are basically attracting pinatas to your garden and making sure their needs are met so they stay happy.Warning for the youngest out there...to tame some of the pinatas they must eat other pinatas like the bird eating the worm.

It will not work on my Acer Aspire V5 laptop. This computer came pre-installed with Windows 8. To save a garden in the game, you have to press the 'Home' button on your keyboard. My laptop doesn't have a key that functions that way. It has a button that brings you back to the dashboard, and when I pressed it with the game running, it just minimized the game. I ended up never being able to play.I've played the Xbox360 version and I LOVE it. It's so much fun, and provides endless hours of entertainment. I just suggest you check that out before purchasing. :)

I have no idea how to setup an account so I can save my garden, but otherwise I loved this game as a kid, and I do now. Also it's much easier if you hook up a XBox 360 controller.

You need to download Games for Windows and make an account; Or use a pre-existing windows live account; (Like xbox) in order to save progress.

まず、大前提で、Windows Liveアカウントが必要です。ないと「セーブできないように作られています」。(!!!)つまり、買ったのに、デモゲーム状態です。そもそも、Windows 7では、セーブのために押す必要があるHomeキーが反応しない現象があります。つまり、Windows 7では現状、セーブができません。Haro用のFixを使えば直る、という解決策がネットで見つかりますが、検証した結果効果はありませんでした。しかも、Windows UpdateのOffice関連のアップデートが直後、原因不明:98Bエラーと出て更新不能になりました。おそらくnet stop cryptsvc云々を手動で行っても同様になると思います。解決策にはもうひとつあり、まず大前提にWindows Liveのアカウントを作った後、Games for Windows Marketplaceというソフトをさらにダウンロードする必要がある・・・というようなのを見かけましたが、なぜ、買ったソフト以外のソフトをダウンロードしないと遊べないのか、というのがまず疑問になり、試しませんでした。どちらにしろ、とにかく「プレイ状況を情報収集させてくれない場合は、セーブさせないよ」という作りのようです。なら、商品説明にそう大々的に書いてほしいです。「Windows Liveアカウントなければ、セーブできません(させません)」と。買ったらこれ、じゃあ詐欺ですよね。ネット・パソコン世界の法の未整備を利用したこういう悪質な商売がまかり通るのかぁと改めて痛感しました。現在$0.98で販売しているようですが、無料でもわかってたら買わなかったです、楽しそうだっただけに残念。(どれだけやってもセーブできないやり込みゲーなんてやる気起こりません)

...No this isn't my love life I'm talking about, but raved Rare's latest Microsoft exclusive title Viva Piñata.Presumably a backlash towards Nintendo's highly successful Animal Crossing on the Cube and DS, and Harvest Moon for the Playstations, Viva Piñata fills the void of happy-go-lucky, family Sim/ God-games on the Xbox 360.Now released on PC, Viva Piñata transfers its beauty across platforms surprisingly well, assuming you don't have a P.C. Windows has randomly pulled out of a hat and decided it doesn't like.You're approached by Leafos, the daughter of a world famous gardener who revolutionised the way their world raised and co-existed with `Piñatas', cuddly and colourful animals made purely of sweets.Your objective is to clean and expand your garden whilst welcoming all types of these Piñatas as possible. To do this, you must fulfil a habitat that suits they're typical needs i.e. grow specific fruits or breed another species they like to feed on.Once in your garden, make `em lovey-dovey with another of their kind then build a house for them to Barry White all night long in, if you know what I mean? Once done, you've earned your breeding certificate for that Piñata hence gained experience levels needed to pursue forward.At first there's a surprising amount of strategy in place for such a simple concept. Leafos will quite promptly explain the basics of how to build the garden and as your experience grows, new friends will help expand your canvas.The problem dawns 10 hours in, having cleared most of the initial obstacles when you realise Viva Piñata expands but doesn't evolve into anything deeper. Once you've found characters to make gardening and safe-keeping easier, there's not much more to do besides finding more varieties of Piñatas.Unlike Harvest Moon that allows you go raise a family, and most others alike that give you giant worlds to explore (Pokemon), You're set in the same playing field for the entirety. There is a story, but it's there mainly for light-hearted comedy (in which it is was enough to make my 21 self belly chuckle a few times) as opposed to progressing game play any further.What this essentially comes down to is lack of rewards. The first few times you receive a new Piñata; you give a wild giggle to its visual presentation. But it will become old hat, and the developers don't take things to the next level.There are countless minor problems, regardless of the various bugs many have experienced, not least the item screens set completely out of the main action.Whilst this expresses a great level of effort of detail, taking the player to shops on another screen feels quite disjoined and tiresome when having to do countless times.Want to buy some plant seeds? This will mean clicking through 5 screens, pressing OK 8 times before you get what you want. Next, you want to build a house. Again, 5 screens, 8 clickes, etc. It's fiddly!Highlighting the correct item also bears some difficulty when you're area becomes crowded. Often I've tried to sell a plant and ended up selling a house next to it instead. This isn't helped by the fact that the camera is zoomed to close into the action, even when you scroll away. The only way to get a remotely good view of the scenery is via the static bird's eye view.I give kudos to the ambient soundtrack. Although not highly original, it certainly keeps the atmosphere in the right place, however I would have loved a fair few more tracks.Not to mention the refreshing visual style. This game certainly looks charming. Indeed, it's all pretty cutesy, kiddie stuff, but this is not a kids game if you don't choose it to be. I took on this game having just come out of Post Mortem (a PC game, not me personally!).Even without the highest graphic settings (I had to play on medium settings as this is pretty high end stuff) I felt like I was getting a game made in 2007. The only game I've played on the PC remotely like Piñata is Psychonauts (albeit that game's darker). The character designs are pretty much like out of a children's early morning television show, but it brings out a smile on those all ages just like all those classics we all grew up on did.If this is for the younger gamer, this will hold their attention for a while, but it can become apparent even for them that not enough new is happening over time.This game kept my 10 year-old sister and myself wildly amused for the first day, but after night passed, we already found ourselves drawn back to previous titles we were playing, where the story and game play were continuously giving us so much more.This game represents the great representation we've seen in most of Rare's titles (Banjo Kazooie, Goldeneye) but it doesn't attempt to revolutionise the genre, or even keep in pace with the competition. Thank god then that Pinata has just The Sims as competition on the 360. But for us PC owners, apart from exceeding graphics, nothing mildly new is brought to the playing field.

* I gave this game a 4/5 stars as Viva Pinata is a truly awesome game. I've played this game a lot on my friends Xbox and wanted to try it out on my pc. But things aren't all good...* Ordering and receiving the game was fine but when I opened the package it said on the front that the game was in the Norwegian language... The booklet was also Norwegian. As far as I know, no where on Amazon does it mention that the game is in any other language but English, so I assumed I was going to get the whole thing in English. The game itself luckily was in English. There were no additional language options during the installation so I guess it depends on your Windows install as mine is in English. I'm not sure what happened, I'm glad the game is English but it's a little disappointing that I have a booklet I can't read a word of.* Even though the game mentioned that it needed Windows Vista or XP it installed fine on Windows 7, it didn't even ask me for the CD key.* Started the game and it asks me to hit the "home" key to make a profile. No data will be saved without a profile being created first. The home key didn't work so I decided to just go ahead and see if the game functions without it. It does but you can't save so that's virtually useless.* After some digging around on google I find that you have to have a windows live installed and an account...* I'm getting real sick and tired of buying games that need additional software or online accounts to play. Not to mention; "Microsoft has let slip that Games for Windows Live will close down for good in July 2014." So unless Microsoft was just kidding about shutting GFWL down or they provide a work around, this game will become unplayable after July.* Maybe there is a way to save the game without GFWL but I'm going to give up for now. Thank god it was cheap.<My grammar and spelling might be slightly off because I'm Dutch>

The game came promptly and worked fine. The only problem was that I couldn't save any of my games so had to start from scratch every time.I spent the better part of 4 hours trying to fix this, and eventually succeeded.IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS SAVING HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:- Firstly, download Games for windows live market place (GFWL) just google it and download the one from the microsoft website.-This will enable you to press the 'home' key at the main menu of the game- After pressing the home key you can create an OFFLINE profile, which will enable saving- IF you get the following error: file you are trying to access is unreadable, corrupt or hard disk may be full.. etc You then need to go to where viva pinata is saved, rightclick the main VP folder that contains all the files and select properties, Then de select the option that says 'read only' and click okay. This should solve the unreadable file error.After A LOT of searching the latter part of this method is NOT anywhere on the internet, so hopefully I'll be able to help a few people with it.

Mal vorweggenommen, das Spiel selbst ist zuckersüß und trotz der kleinkindgerechten Aufmachung ziemlich komplex, wenn man den Anspruch hat, alles zu sehen und alle Aufgaben zu schaffen, die das Spiel zu bieten hat (also z.B. alle Pinatas in allen Varianten anzusiedeln, alle Herausforderungen bewältigen, ...)Leider ist es jedoch anscheinend je nach Computersystem schwer, das Spiel überhaupt zum Starten zu bewegen. So scheint es nach Durchstöbern des Internets eine ganze Reihe von Fehlern zu geben, die bewirken, dass das Spiel entweder nicht startet, abstürzt oder nicht speichert.Ich persönlich kann hier nur von meinem Startfehler berichten, und wie ich ihn behoben habe:Ich verwende Windows 7 64 bit, einen AMD Phenom II X2 Prozessor und eine Radeon HD 4870 Grafikkarte.Wenn ich zu Beginn das Spiel starten wollte, geschah zunächst einmal gar nichts; keine Fehlermeldung aber auch kein Spiel. Ein erneuter Startversuch bewirkte die Meldung, dass Viva Pinata bereits laufe. Ich musste also zuerst über den Taskmanager den entsprechenden Prozess beenden (mit einem sehr merkwürdigen Namen, der wenn ich mich richtig erinnere eine Reihe von Nullen enthielt).Ab dem nächsten Versuch und bei jedem weiteren gab es eine Windows Fehlermeldung, dass "Startup Application" nicht mehr funktioniere. Alle Versuche nach Anleitungen aus dem Internet, das Problem zu beheben, schlugen fehl. Geholfen hat mir dann letztendlich nur das Verwenden eines NoCD Cracks/Patches (in meinem Fall von gamecopyworld), die ja eigentlich verboten sind. Da ich mir das Spiel gekauft habe, sehe ich das aber hier als nicht zutreffend an.Das Einloggen bei Windows Live, die damit zusammenhängende Möglichkeit, die Erfolge freizuschalten, das Speichern, ... Alles funktioniert; ich sehe derzeit jedenfalls kein Problem mehr.Ich hoffe, ich konnte vielleicht jemandem helfen, der auch Probleme hatte. Viel Spaß mit dieser Perle von einem Computerspiel.Übrigens: Obwohl es sich um eine UK Version handelt, läuft sie auch auf deutsch (siehe Kommentar zur Rezension).