Can a gamer who wasn't a fan of the first find something to love in Viva Piñata: Trouble In Paradise? We gathered up some love and hate to find out.

Loved
Piñatas Are Cute(!): Even ornery old curmudgeons like myself can't help but be won over by little bobbling Sweetles and prancing Mousemallows. Spotting new creatures may wear on one's patience, as the intro sequence can't be skipped, but your garden's inhabitants may induce cute overload. Superficial, yes, but the adorable art style of the game's piñatas is hard to hate, even by the hardest of men.
Strong Visuals: However you may feel about Rare's aesthetic, it's hard to argue that Viva Piñata: Trouble In Paradise looks stunning in motion. There may be the odd level-of-detail pop-in and some frame rate sluggishness, but graphically the game is spectacular. The paper inhabitants feels more alive thanks to Rare's attention to detail and technical prowess.
Incredible Depth: There's an amazing amount of virtual stuff to collect, challenges to complete and ways to modify your garden. Mating mini-games are surprisingly fun. Two new environments, Dessert Desert and the Pinarctic, add a dash of variety and dozens of new species to horde, even if they don't bring much in the way of thrilling new gameplay.
Excellent Pacing: Despite a rough start, in which I didn't know what the hell my objectives often were or how to get them done, the game ramps up the difficulty relatively well. You may feel overwhelmed at times, as you juggle multiple objectives, watching your piñatas be picked off and as parts of your garden go to pot, but it's unlikely that you'll become bored with building out your garden.
Disarmingly Addictive: Gardening games, pet sims, god control — not exactly my thing. But time can fly by in Viva Piñata as the constant growth and encyclopedia additions, as well as the improved auto-saving, will make time fly by. Even when I had convinced myself that I was ready to give up, the game somehow managed to keep me absorbed for another hour.

Hated
It's Viva Piñata: To be honest, I wasn't a fan of the first Viva Piñata and, following the completion of this review, it's likely I'll never play Viva Piñata: Trouble In Paradise ever again. If you weren't fond of the first, it's likely you won't be fond of the second. The game feels, on many levels, like a redux release that does little to mix-up the gameplay, instead opting to streamline it and expand the piñata bestiary. The budget-y release price tag helps alleviate the feeling of been there, done that.
Hideous Humans: Inasmuch as the piñatas in the game are adorable, the humanoid characters are disturbing, creepy and annoying. Grating voice work compounds the hate.
Random Overcomplexity: Whether it's confusing interface choices or too many button presses to get done what needs to be done, Trouble In Paradise can frustrate with some of its control design decisions. The game has some welcome control revisions, but we sometimes felt lost in the UI.

I'm about to commit my least favorite review cop out — If you liked the first Viva Piñata for the Xbox 360, you will like the second even more. If you didn't like the first Viva Piñata for the Xbox 360, you're more than likely going to feel the same way about Trouble In Paradise. Some people get it and absolutely adore it, but I'm not one of those people. I couldn't stand Pikmin, for example, a title that I find similarly puzzling in its appeal. That doesn't mean that Rare has made a bad game by any means, just that its appeal continues to be selective.

Those who did appreciate the first will likely be thrilled by the addition of online multiplayer and local coop, even if the former is more successful than the latter in its implementation. An expanded roster, a "Fun For All" mode and better Live integration will probably bring you back, but if you never jumped in in the first place, we'd suggest a rental.

Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, developed by Rare and published by Microsoft was released on Sept. 2 for the Xbox 360. Retails for $39.99. Focused on main campaign over the course of twelve hours, tested coop modes and Xbox Live online play.

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To promote the game's launch, Xbox.com are running a Viva Piñata treasure hunt.

Piñata egg icons will be dotted around the Xbox.com site. Clicking on each of them reveals a hidden PDF file containing a Piñata Vision card that can be printed out and imported into the game using a LIVE Vision camera. There are 25 such cards to collect on Xbox.com and Xbox Community Manager Graeme 'AceyBongos' Boyd will be distributing 25 more via XCN.

Each Vision Card contains an exclusive Piñata that can be imported into your current game.

Viva Piñata Community Site

As we covered back in May, Viva Piñata: Trouble In Paradise for the Xbox 360 can be used with the Xbox Live Vision Camera and a selection of special cards. Players can wave the cards in front of the camera to invoke certain game effects.

Players will be able to download free cards, which can then be printed out — or just displayed on a PDA or mobile phone screen held in front of the camera. Players can also create their own cards for online trading.

It looks like it will work a bit like the PS3 game Eye Of Judgement although Rare say that the game will be fully playable without the card/camera combo.

"The Vision Camera just adds a new dimension to Piñata and how you can interact with the game. Vision cards are really versatile, by showing one of the cards to the Vision Camera you can affect the weather, the time, garden items, piñatas, you can do just about anything" - Ryan Stevenson, Rare

The first Piñata Vision Card goes online! [MundoRare]

Anyway, Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise adds 30 new piñata species, more co-op and gameplay modes, and the official announcement promises that Piñata Island has gotten even bigger. Crecente had a look at it recently and found that it seems to tone up what could've been seen as problem zones in the original.

Full details after the jump!

Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise Release Date and New Details Revealed
Green thumbs and animal-loving gamers rejoice with the return of their favourite candy-filled creatures, hits shelves on 5th September
LONDON – 3rd July 2008 - Roarios and Tigermisus and Fizzlybears, OH MY! Microsoft today announced that “Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise” will be released and on store shelves by 5th September.

With more than 30 additional new piñata species, expanded co-op options and multiple gameplay modes, “Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise” offers limitless fun for every animal-lover in the family.

Piñata Island has gotten bigger too! Now players can explore wild areas outside of the garden where they will need to bait and retrieve exotic piñata species who won’t venture into the garden on their own.

Put on your mittens and snow shoes as you brave the cold of the Pinartic where you’ll find piñatas that prefer cooler temperatures and the occasional blizzard, like Pengums and Polollybears. Or you can shed the layers and head to the sands of the Dessert Desert, where Camellos and Jameleons bask in the arid sun.

All of these new exotic piñatas will not venture into your garden willingly, so you’ll need to bait and retrieve them yourself. But you can make them feel at home right away by adding patches of snow or sand to your garden, similar to how you add grass and water.

Available exclusively on Xbox 360, “Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise” reinvigorates a colourful and engaging gaming experience. Now with full cooperative gameplay modes and various approachable difficulty settings, the “Viva Piñata” franchise opens its doors even wider with a new game that provides hours of fun for gamers of all ages, fans of the animated series and animal lovers alike.

-Ends-

While the game is looking great, I am a bit disturbed by this Professor Pester character. Pester just doesn't seem to fit a guy who wants to gnaw on your intestines, licorice-based as they may be.

"We got it to work, but it was too late in the development cycle," Cook said, presumably talking about the cycle of the DS game. If only they'd thought of it sooner, he laughed. "It's one of those things where you just kick yourself."

Nintendo DS - Xbox 360 Connectivity Considered For 'Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise' [MTV Multiplayer]

"It looked like a kids game, but was quite difficult to play," said a Rare developer walking us through the game. "We kept the basic principal, you're in a garden and trying to attract animals to it."

But the team's done a lot to simplify the game and make it more accessible to a wider audience. Chief among the changes is a co-op mode that lets you play in the garden with friend. They've also added a fun mode which gives gamers the ability to buy just about anything in the game, removes the bad guys and turns the garden into an instant gratification sandbox.

Other tweaks include adding snow and sand and the sorts of pinatas that would like that sort of terrain. You can also now take pictures in the game and have them sent to a website which will recognize which animals are on display and categorize them automatically for easy searching. There's also an easy to use in-game animal finder which makes tracking down your pet pinatas much less of a chore.

The short demo wrapped up with a look at the Pinata Vision system. Using the Xbox 360 camera, gamers can hold up a specially created Viva Pinata image and instantly import it into the game.

"It doesn't have to be a card, it can be an image on your Zune or iPod that you would just hold up to the camera"

While the tweaks look like they could streamline gameplay a bit, Trouble in Paradise is still very much a Viva Pinata game for better or worse and I'm not so sure it's been simplified enough to attract the potential audience that the cartoon has created for the game.

I don't actually ever, y'know, go into nature or anything like that, but I'm imagining this is exactly what it looks like.

Update: Apparently, this is what they call B-roll footage, not an officially sanctioned trailer for the game and not intended to be shown in its entirety. We think it's just a spectacular selection of gameplay, but please note this is "raw" unedited video.

In the late 90s Rare established themselves as a top-tier studio, producing such classics as GoldenEye and Donkey Kong Country for Nintendo. But in 2002, Microsoft bought up the company and prepared to have the studio start work on some of the marquee titles for their upcoming Xbox 360.

I told Kim that back before the Xbox 360 launched I had heard that Rare's Perfect Dark Zero was meant to be the platform's launch title, the reason gamers would take notice of the 360 and decide to buy into the new platform.

When the game finally hit, with the launch of the 360 and Rare's other title Kameo, it was met with a mixed reception, certainly not the sort that Microsoft had bet on.

Is Rare, I asked Kim, a developer that better suited to the audience and platforms of Nintendo gaming?

The short answer, Kim said, is no. But he did acknowledge that Rare hasn't yet met it's full potential on the Xbox 360. Neither Perfect Dark Zero or Kameo were the massive hits that Microsoft expects and Viva Pinata, he said, was a game that attracted a casual audience but was much deeper than that sort of gamer expected or was interested in playing.

But Rare's upcoming titles could turn that around. Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise, for instance, hopes to fix that disconnect between the audience it attracted and its accessibility by adding online and local co-op and tweaking gameplay.

And while Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts isn't a true sequel to the franchise, its concept, a vehicle platformer, was entirely the idea of Rare and its developers.

Hopefully today will give me a chance to see if Rare has been able to turn it around and get back to making games like Goldeneye rather than Grabbed By The Ghoulies.

What are they showing? Ninja Gaiden II, Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Too Human, and several games without 2 or Too in them, including Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, and Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One.

Crecente will be there all day for the event, so you can expect all sorts of fun stuff from him later in the day. While we busy ourselves setting up galleries and processing videos for your enjoyment, feel free to read through the official press release, after the jump.

Microsoft Game Studios Unveils Gears of War 2 Gameplay

"Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise" Set to Burst Onto Store Shelves This Fall
LONDON - 13th May 2008 - Today Microsoft Game Studios (MGS) and industry luminaries from the world's top development studios will be on hand to show off the latest features of the year's most in-demand titles; present will be Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski, Lionhead's Peter Molyneux, TECMO/Team NINJA's Tomonobu Itagaki and Silicon Knights' Denis Dyack. This year, the visage of Marcus Fenix joins the likes of Ryu Hayabusa, Banjo, vivacious piñatas, cybernetic gods and a hero with a loyal dog sidekick in the all-star 2008 MGS line-up that promises to make Xbox 360 the console of choice for players everywhere.

Attendees of the MGS San Francisco showcase event will witness the first extended taste of "Gears of War 2," the sequel to the blockbuster third-person tactical action game that sold nearly 5 million units. Epic Games Design Director, Cliff Bleszinski, will demonstrate dramatic new gameplay elements and stunning visual effects in a campaign sequence from early in the game - where Marcus Fenix and COG forces engage in pulse-pounding firefights between two Derrick transports, fend off vicious Reaver fly-by attacks and rabid Brumaks - all in the same rollercoaster ride of a level. As the most anticipated Xbox 360 exclusive title of the 2008 holiday season, "Gears of War 2" offers an unforgettable gameplay experience that blends a gripping story with visceral combat on a grand scale.

MGS will also crack open "Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise," set to appear on store shelves this September. Developed by the creative masterminds at Rare, this sequel to the colourful, sleeper hit builds upon the gameplay of the original and adds innovative twists to the mix. In an effort to help Piñata Central rebuild their computer database of piñatas, players will send piñatas at full candiosity to parties all around the world while using their creativity and imagination to attract, capture, protect, train and manage more than 100 newly discovered and existing piñata species. An exciting, new "Just for Fun" setting makes getting into the game fast and easy. For the first time, players will be able to collaborate together on a garden through a rich co-op experience, connect and play with others online via Xbox LIVE as well as instantly introduce new piñata species to their garden through an innovative new feature utilizing the Xbox LIVE Vision Camera.

MGS will also pull back the curtain on another beloved franchise with the triumphant return of Banjo, one of Rare's most successful characters, in "Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts." Defying the laws of nature, a bear, a bird and a backpack team up to embark on another incredible adventure this November. MGS is breaking the rules of traditional platformer games by putting the power to invent new abilities for Banjo directly into the players' hands. By using their ingenuity to build imaginative vehicles that can be combined with infinite variations, gamers help Banjo successfully complete missions through multiple terrains. Through exploration, discovering hidden secrets and solving puzzles to win rewards, players will continually find increasing ways to customize and improve their contraptions, creating an unprecedented level of user-generated content and emergent play for a 3-D adventure game.

These instantly recognizable franchises join the enviable company of "Fable 2," "Too Human" and "Ninja Gaiden II" from Team NINJA/TECMO, making Xbox 360 the home of the best blockbuster game experiences this year.

Other news and features of 2008 Xbox 360 blockbusters:

• "Fable 2": The wait is almost over for the sequel to THE biggest action role-playing game in Xbox history. Swords, guns and now the newly unveiled magical power round out the combat in this action RPG from acclaimed developer Peter Molyneux and Lionhead Studios. Players will have even more choices to continuously shape who their characters become in a world 10 times the size of the iconic Xbox game. "Fable 2" introduces a host of exciting new features for gamers, including a first-of-its-kind Xbox LIVE Arcade experience, and a genre-stretching multiplayer experience, allowing gamers easily play "Fable 2" with friends and family side-by-side from the comfort of a living room couch. Players can immerse themselves in this vibrant world that only Lionhead and Molyneux could create, beginning this holiday.

• "Too Human": Today, MGS and Silicon Knights will confirm that the wait is almost over - "Too Human" will be available on August 19 in North America and August 29 in Europe. "Too Human" is an epic, highly anticipated action game with integrated RPG elements and features a rich storyline with deep character development, both hallmarks of Silicon Knights' legendary tradition of video game development. Additionally, Silicon Knights is showcasing for the first time, the title's online cooperative play via Xbox LIVE; allowing gamers to experience "Too Human" with friends in a multiplayer setting.

• "Ninja Gaiden II": Team NINJA/TEMCO will reveal today that gamers can get a head start on expanding and customizing their "Ninja Gaiden II" experience with the release of Gamerpics and Themes, available as PDLC on Xbox LIVE beginning today. The Gamerpics packs include five new images each, at 100 points per pack; and the Themes, which focus on heroes and bosses, are 150 points per pack. Soon gamers everywhere will follow Ryu Hayabusa's entire blood-drenched mission - through cities like Venice, New York and Tokyo - to avenge his clan and prevent the destruction of the human race. "Ninja Gaiden II" slashes its way onto store shelves on June 3 in North America and June 6 in Europe. Additional "Ninja Gaiden II" PDLC will be available for download on May 20, with subsequent releases throughout the summer.

• "Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One" on Xbox LIVE Arcade provides a first-of-its-kind RPG-Adventure experience based on the popular Web comic. The creative collaboration between Penny Arcade creators Mike 'Gabe' Krahulik and Jerry 'Tycho' Holkins, legendary game designer Ron Gilbert and producers at Hothead Games results in a 100-percent authentic Penny Arcade experience that pushes bizarre characters, outrageous combat and adult humor to the precipice of darkness. "Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One" will be available on Xbox LIVE Arcade May 21, 2008.

Microsoft Game Studios is the home to many of the industry's biggest franchises and continues to set the bar for top-quality entertainment experiences for players of all types. Characters from the game universes of "Gears of War," "Fable," "Banjo-Kazooie," and "Viva Piñata" have enthralled gamers young and old all over the world. In 2007, MGS made history with some of the biggest video game launches ever, including Halo 3," "PGR4" and "Mass Effect."

With games often among the highest rated in their class by critics, Microsoft Game Studios delivers the best and most complete game experiences exclusively on Xbox 360, fuelled by the passion of 10 million gamers worldwide playing on Xbox LIVE.

This is just the beginning of what promises to be another landmark year for games on Xbox 360. Stay tuned for more announcements in the coming months.