I had the opportunity to try out Viva Pinata at one of Microsoft's 360 kiosks in Leipzig today. It was pretty, and I appreciate the way that Microsoft is trying to bring nightmarish surrealism into the lives of small children everywhere.

But one problem I had was that I just couldn't figure out how to play the game. There may or may not have been instructions on the German placard before me, but I didn't have the sturm und drang to read it. I was stumped. Puzzled, I called the nearest expert I could find: a Microsoft 360 Booth Babe.

"Do you know how to play this game?" I asked.

"No, I don't think so," she matter-of-factly responded, then gently pushed me aside. The booth babe proceeded to drop me into the middle of a completely barren, Lovecraftian world of sundered earth, black skies, and claw-like trees scratching their way out of their chthonic tombs. I screamed a little. This is apparently the world of Viva Pinata before you begin populating it.

"This is what I know how to do," the booth babe continued, choosing a packet of grass from a menu and using it to sprinkle seed across the cracked, lifeless earth. The booth babe let me try. I had fun with it for about ten seconds, then got bored. So started trying to build the rest of my own personal Pinata Land. It was not a success; I found the entire thing very confusing.

"I don't get this at all!" I finally exclaimed in frustration. The booth babe nodded.

"It is, I think, not for smart people, like you and me, but for little children," she explained. Which seemed like an odd thing to say, because I certainly wasn't smart enough to play it, and neither was she. Florian Eckhardt

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