Viva Piñata

Speaking of Rare, Viva Piñata is a perfect video game. You’re telling me a garden simulator in which you build a home for living piñatas that reproduce by dancing doesn’t sound like the tightest shit you’ve ever played? Then maybe you should boot up the Rare Replay collection and see for yourself. Viva Piñata should have been huge. The games were great (well, with the exception of the Party Animals mini-game compilation) and Microsoft made it a multimedia franchise, so we got a pretty funny television show out of the deal that lasted a few years. But we tragically haven’t seen anything out of the series since 2008’s Trouble in Paradise and Pocket Paradise launched on the Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS, respectively. Unfortunately, I can’t imagine a version of Viva Piñata on modern platforms that doesn’t succumb to some insufferable live-service bullshit like microtransactions to buy in-game supplies or your character becoming “tired” if you don’t pay for an extension that day. But I can dream of another trip to Piñata Island in 4K. — Kenneth Shepard