If you missed out on the first one, let's get you up to speed. In Viva Pinata you're given a space to create a small garden with. You'll be given tools like a shovel and watering can, and access to a variety of seeds and plants that you can cultivate within the confines of your garden. Eventually you'll gain more items, like fencing, tiki lights, and a variety of odd objects you can scatter around depending on the theme or look you're going for. As you build up your garden, you'll attract Pinata to come and visit, at which point you can look them up thru your in-game encyclopedia to see what requirements need to be met to get them to stick around as residents. As you begin, the requirements are typically pretty simple, like with the Whirlms you'll only need to have so much dirt present for them to stay, but as you advance in rank you'll come across much tougher requirements for the rare Pinata.

The core gameplay is pretty addictive on it's own, but this time around Rare has tried to give players a bit more motivation in attracting as many different Pinata as possible. As you begin the tutorial, you'll be introduced to the concept of getting certain Pinata that will take part in a party across the world. You'll be directed to obtain one Pinata, usually with a secondary requirement (they must be a baby, or their happiness should be maxed out, etc.), which is great because it gives you a definite goal to reach, instead of just randomly building up your garden and seeing what you can bring in. Of course, you can always opt to ignore these requests as well, and play however you want, but I really enjoyed the addition of this mode, and it made me feel like I was constantly playing to achieve something.

As you advance in rank, you'll gain more and more land for your garden, which will obviously allow you to build it up more and attract more Pinata. Also, this time out there are two other areas available, Dessert Desert and Pinarctic, where you can trap various Pinata and bring them over to your garden. The tutorial does a great job here as well, getting you accustomed to the idea of using traps and laying bait for certain Pinata, introducing these elements in a fashion that's easy to understand for adults and younger players alike.

Another great addition to this sequel is the use of co-op play, both online and off. Across Xbox Live you can play in one garden with 4 players at once, and you can even set restrictions (if you're the host) on what other players can and cannot do, so you don't get some unruly players destroying all your hard work. Offline co-op is quite a bit of fun as well; with the only real drawback being that you're both confined to one screen, so you can't quite multitask as well as you can online. However, if you're a parent and you've got a kid that you're trying to get interesting in playing Viva Pinata, offline mode is fantastic since you can play together and help him/her out when they get stuck by simply jumping in when they need it.

The menu has been streamlined a little bit, but for the most part all your shopping options are similar to the previous games. This time around you have a handy seed bag for quick access to seeds, so you can simply bring this up instead of exiting out of the garden to go to the store, but you still have to access your builder and other store options from the menu like in the previous game. Everyone makes a return appearance, like Seedos, and they all seem to act the same or keep the same role as before.

Sour Pinata are still an annoying threat to the livelihood of your garden, but once again you can tame them. Making trouble along with them is the Ruffians and Professor Pester, who actually kicks off the "story" of the game by accidentally erasing the database of Pinata on the island. The goal of the story is to rebuild this database, but the actual story doesn't really play much of a part throughout the entire game. It just serves as a small reason for a sequel (and I assume as to why your garden is back to being little); so don't worry about being plagued with cutscenes and lengthy bits of dialogue throughout.

There's over 30 new Pinata to capture and mate, and the mating plays out in a similar fashion to the previous game, complete with the little mini-game. There are a few other side activities, including a side scrolling race event and a beauty pageant that your Pinata can partake in, but they're minor distractions from the main game, and don't seem to impact the growth of your garden or Pinata that much. Basically, if you enjoyed the first one, you won't find anything to fault with this one either.

That said, Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise might play things a bit safe for this newest entry. I don't expect a complete overhaul in how the game plays, after all, if it's not broke why fix it, but it'd be nice to see a few interesting changes to garden building and Pinata attracting than what they've tossed in here. Everything feels more like a streamlining effect, or cleaning up annoyances from the previous game, than true additions, outside of the multiplayer element and the new areas. You can still trade Pinata with other players, and one new addition (that might not apply to many), is the use of the Vision Cam to scan in Pinata cards, which will put a Pinata into play for you. It's a good use of the device for the players that actually have it, but obviously it's not going to be useful for everyone.

Still, Viva Pinata is a blast to play, and incredibly addictive once you get the hang of the menu's and keeping track of all your available Pinata. The small additions are all well done, and definitely useful, and the game still reeks of charm that'll appeal to older and younger gamers alike. It might not have as many improvements as other sequels can boast, but it's still a solid game that I think everyone can enjoy.