Viva Pinata Party Animals Achievements
Achievements Achievement How to Unlock All Your Game Are Belong To Us Play all Challenge Events. Game Guru Win the game. Viva Pinata: Party Animals Achievement List. Blake Wednesday, October. In this article: Achievements, Krome-Studios, microsoft-game-studios, viva-pinata, viva-pinata-party-animals All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of.
There's footage of me (in one of those Eurogamer TV Shows Johnny makes when he's not hob-knobbing with Jo Wiley) positively agape with delight at the sight of all my old Viva Piñata friends dancing merrily across Microsoft's E3 mega-screen. This is because I love Viva Piñata. I cuddle it when I go to bed. It was one of the best games of 2006 and I have many happy memories of playing it on cold winter evenings, the warming sights and sounds of a flourishing garden coaxing me further into the night. What the camera failed to capture, however, was what happened next. As the true nature of Party Animals became apparent, my jaw undropped itself and clenched, the smile disappearing from my face in a cascade of furrows and despairing creases. Mini-games. Why not just piss on my face?
That said, we shouldn't be surprised: Viva Pinata was originally conceived as a way of helping the Xbox 360 appeal to kids and families (so much so that poor old Rare had to avoid using the hard disk in case people bought Core Systems), and seems to have failed to do that. Some of the Rare folks blamed the marketing budget going to Gears of War, but VP was a bit complicated anyway - not that it bothered its seemingly unintended beneficiaries, us. And so Party Animals, thrown together by Krome Studios using familiar assets from VP and the (surprisingly watchable) TV show, goes in completely the opposite direction, delivering a mixture of dull foot-races and dull mini-games and handing out Gamerpoints like candy.
There are two things you can do with Party Animals: you can play a selection of randomised mini-games interspersed between foot-races with people sat in your lounge, and you can play a selection of randomised mini-games interspersed between foot-races with people sat in other lounges around the world.
Notice how I used the same words twice in a row to make the paragraph seem longer. Annoying, wasn't it? In which case you will probably also find it annoying that you can't create custom playlists of mini-games, and so encounter the same ones over and over again, not to mention encountering the same elements in multiple games because they're all much of a muchness. Take Messy Mayhem and Ruffian Tumble - both involve Ruffians, both involve whacking things to collect candy, and both are rubbish - or Raisant Stomp and Red Raisant Blast - both about stamping on ants, except one of them has red ants as well. Other mini-games include Tail Time, where you have to pin tails on Zumbugs by positioning the cursor in one place and hitting A occasionally, before moving it to the other side of the screen and hitting A occasionally; and Caramel Apple Gobble, where you press A repeatedly to chomp on an apple, tweaking the analogue stick once per bite so you don't munch on the same part twice. That's it.
One of the better ones is Piñata Mess-terpiece, where you have to run around a circular game area leaving a trail of paint, trying to outdo other players doing the same thing by repeatedly painting over their bits. This is as strategic as Party Animals ever gets, and I would probably have found it more appealing had this exact idea not been done better in Mercury Meltdown on the PSP last year, and probably in about 400 other places at other points in time. Another homage is Who's Left, which is like that Brain Training DS mini-game where people walk into and out of a house and you have to say how many remain inside. I say it's like that - the main difference is that this is astonishingly easy.
If Mess-terpiece is the benchmark, then, not much is done to rival it. Quick Candy Colours is about being first to hit whichever face button corresponds to the colour of the sweetie on-screen. Ruffians Smack Ahoy is Wac-A-Mole with suicide bombes. There's also Short Fuse, where you realise you're paying GBP 40 to play hot potato. And I can't be bothered to list any of the others. There are 40 or more in total. If you played them all in order, you would see them all within an hour or so. But you can't, because it's random, so instead you will have to play it for longer than that.
Doing so will also give you a chance to muse on the strengths and weaknesses of the racing game bits. These involve running around courses that take you across beaches, through towns and treetop villages, over icy bridges and even hurl you over roller-coaster Ruffian railways. There is no question that each environment is gorgeously realised, bursting with happy themes and lively incidental detail, and you will certainly have plenty of time to appreciate these things as you plod through them collecting a mixture of sub-Mario Kart power-ups, keeping an eye out for the telegraphed shortcut that nobody will ever miss more than once. Winning is largely down to these things, and in competitive multiplayer it's pretty important, as your podium position feeds a certain amount of extra points into the results of subsequent mini-games, so a first-placed racer can still be feeling the benefit a few minutes later.
It's hard to say how well that element plays out over the long term, because I was unable to convince my previously willing friends to play more than a couple of full games of Party Animals. Some of them actually left when I proposed another, leaving me to plod through against the AI, which puts up so little resistance (even when you select the option to keep things artificially competitive) that you might as well be playing on your own. Which is a bit of a drawback for programming designed to try and suppress the fact that you are playing on your own.
Anyway, despite my initial reaction to the announcement, I imported this, and popped it into the disc tray hoping against hope that it was more than it seemed. It isn't. It's actually less. There's very little challenge or strategy, and very little imagination has gone into anything besides the visuals, which were done by other people anyway. Xbox 360 wasn't a good system for kids and families before this came out, and nothing's changed. Teach them to play Viva Piñata instead.
3 /10
Achievements:Complete the following achievements to unlock Xbox Live Gamerscore points.
All Your Game Are Belong To Us 50 points: Play all Challenge Events.
Social Flutterscotch 50 points: Finish the game in first place with each of the 8 characters.
Redhott Racer 50 points: Win all Challenge Events and races in a single game.
Megaton 50 points: Finish every race.
Chewnicorn Streak 30 points: As a male character, finish a game while never losing to a female character.
Professor Pester Award 30 points: Use the Fiesta Missile power-up on each of the 8 characters.
Kittyfloss Streak 30 points: Win 8 Challenge Events in a row.
Artful Dodger 30 points: As a female character, finish a game while never losing to a male character.
Catch It if You Can 20 points: Hit every player with a power-up in a single race.
Aiming Artist 20 points: Win 5 Challenge Events in a row.
Do You Feel Lucky, Piñata? 30 points: Collect more than 1,000 pieces of candy while playing as Fergy Fudgehog.
Eaglair Eye Award 20 points: Avoid the snowball in Snow-bowl Dodgeball.
Host with the Most 20 points: Play a game with anyone who has this achievement to earn it. Then, you can 'spread' it too.
Loaded Bases 20 points: Hit the farthest target at least 3 times in 1 Launching Loathers game.
Play alphabetty saga - king. Scenic Route 20 points: Win a game of Short Fuse without the Loather ever detonating in your hands.
Pacifist 20 points: Find and use all the shortcuts in the races.
Party Crasher 20 points: Finish the game in any place with each of the 8 characters.
Practice Makes Perfect 20 points: Host 3 games over Xbox LIVE.
Int'l Piñata of Mystery 20 points: Hit the target 4 times in a row in Swing for the Stars.
Don't Be Left in the Dark 20 points: Win a race without using any shortcuts.
Sticky Feet 20 points: Win a race without using a Fiesta Missile, Colored Water Bomb, or Smoke Bomb.
Strike 20 points: Destroy 10 objects in a single race while playing as Petunia Pretztail.
Stuffed 20 points: Win 3 games over Xbox LIVE where you are not the host.
Tricky Treats 20 points: Play the game for 5 hours.
Rainbow of Piñatas 20 points: Use each power-up at least once in a single game.
Game Guru 20 points: Knock each of the other players out of the light in a single game of Spotlight Mania.
Quick Like a Bunnycomb 20 points: Use the Buzzlegum Honey Slick power-up 10 times.
Whirlm Streak 20 points: Get a strike in Bouncy Bowling.
No Wipeouts 20 points: Get more than 99 candies in any single Challenge Event.
Classic Gamer Reward 20 points: Destroy at least 25 pumpkins in a single game of Messy Mayhem.
Bear Hug 20 points: Play each of the 8 characters in 1 of their alternate colors.
Flutterscotch Quickness 15 points: Win the game.
Mama's Boy 15 points: Win 1 race.
Making Friends 15 points: Hit 3 speed strips in a single race.
Gassy Gusts 15 points: Win 3 Challenge Events in a row.
Scene Stealer 15 points: Never fall down in a single race while playing as Franklin Fizzlybear.
Seeing Double 10 points: Enter the classic gamers code while on the START screen. For a hint, go right into your manual&8230;.
Squished 10 points: Never use a power-up on Franklin Fizzlybear while playing as Florence Fizzlybear.
Keep Your Friends Close 10 points: Use the Flutterscotch Wings power-up to overtake an opponent.
Think Fast 10 points: Play a game with someone who hasn't unlocked a Challenge Event you have unlocked.
So Awesome 10 points: Lose to Fergy Fudgehog while playing as Francine Fudgehog.
? 10 points: Play a game over Xbox LIVE, or invite someone to an online game.
? 10 points: Complete a game with all 4 characters playing as Hudson Horstachio.
? 10 points: Get your ship all the way to the finish line in Burps Ahoy.
? 10 points: Beat Hudson Horstachio while playing as Hailey Horstachio.
? 10 points: Finish a game while playing as the same Piñata as at least 1 other opponent.
? 10 points: Jump and ground pound each of the other players at least once in Raisant Stomp.
? 10 points: Complete a multiplayer game offline.
? 5 points: Never get hit in an entire contest by a Fiesta Missile while playing as Paulie Pretztail.
? 10 points: You, the master of unlocking