Dayfish
09-12-2008, 10:32 PM
Jess and I finally decided to play Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise together after she patiently waited and waited for me to get it. We were both really excited to do some crazy co-op xbox live gardening together, and we both loved the first Viva Pinata. ONE WORD for the online co-op: HORRIBLE.
At first everything seemed innocent and harmless enough. I checked the settings to make sure there was no hidden "private garden" mode I wasn't aware of. I couldn't find any, so I just went to "host an xbox live game." I invited Jess to game, and we began to start gardening on my barely-touched pinata garden. Three minutes later, a random child shows up. Jess and I are a little bewildered, and she asks me, "How do you make the garden private? Let's make it private." I go into my settings in the game - it shows that I can give permissions to certain players, such as only allowing them to look or giving them restricted access, but there was no private game setting. It even gave me the option to boot someone. Okay, good to know, but I really only wanted to garden with Jess.
We tolerated the child for a bit, and that was okay. She wasn't being destructive, only a little girl. Then an adult shows up, with a thick British accent. He offers nicely to help with the garden and we let him for some time. He even helps me gain a 20 g achievement for evolving some of my pinatas. I was delighted. I wasn't delighted by all the millions of cut scenes I had to go through. Apparently this guy was a level 50 gardener, and your garden's difficulty automatically scales accordingly based on who the highest level gardener is. Hrm.
I could barely play, I just sat there listening to Jess chatter away with these people we didn't know. They ran around with shovels planting things, and I was completely lost. What was going on? I absolutely loved the first Viva Pinata, why couldn't I grasp this one?! So then something really bizarre happened. Jess starts going, "Dana, someone is breaking all your pinatas." I could barely realize what was happening because I was sitting through agonizing cut scene after cut scene (i.e. - "Oh look, you attracted a sour shellybean!" then "Oh no, a sour profitamole! Too bad!" F off, Leafos, seriously.).
I barely had enough time to act, before I realized the new British-speaking boy that was helping completely got the better of us and decided to smash up the garden! He destroyed almost every pinata. I fumbled with the controls clumsily trying to correct the situation, and eventually I found the "boot player from garden" option. I was furious.
Not because I was angry my pinatas were destroyed (I barely even knew them), but because this could have all been very easily prevented had there been some type of private gardening option. What gives? Did I miss something? If I did, it was very poorly explained. Afterwards Jess and I left the jerk some pretty lousy feed back and I even submitted a complaint, but the damage was done. We stuck around for a few minutes to continue gardening, but our experience had been soured. We just didn't feel like playing after that.
Ten minutes of online Viva Pinata co-op, spoiled by one person.
Why wouldn't they allow private gardening? And why on earth would the garden's difficulty not scale to the person who was hosting it? I shouldn't have to sit there helplessly through endless cut scenes while a jerk demolishes my garden.
Overall experience...obviously in the toilet. It truly was a trouble in paradise.
(I know this was long, and if you stuck with me for my rant...thanks!)
At first everything seemed innocent and harmless enough. I checked the settings to make sure there was no hidden "private garden" mode I wasn't aware of. I couldn't find any, so I just went to "host an xbox live game." I invited Jess to game, and we began to start gardening on my barely-touched pinata garden. Three minutes later, a random child shows up. Jess and I are a little bewildered, and she asks me, "How do you make the garden private? Let's make it private." I go into my settings in the game - it shows that I can give permissions to certain players, such as only allowing them to look or giving them restricted access, but there was no private game setting. It even gave me the option to boot someone. Okay, good to know, but I really only wanted to garden with Jess.
We tolerated the child for a bit, and that was okay. She wasn't being destructive, only a little girl. Then an adult shows up, with a thick British accent. He offers nicely to help with the garden and we let him for some time. He even helps me gain a 20 g achievement for evolving some of my pinatas. I was delighted. I wasn't delighted by all the millions of cut scenes I had to go through. Apparently this guy was a level 50 gardener, and your garden's difficulty automatically scales accordingly based on who the highest level gardener is. Hrm.
I could barely play, I just sat there listening to Jess chatter away with these people we didn't know. They ran around with shovels planting things, and I was completely lost. What was going on? I absolutely loved the first Viva Pinata, why couldn't I grasp this one?! So then something really bizarre happened. Jess starts going, "Dana, someone is breaking all your pinatas." I could barely realize what was happening because I was sitting through agonizing cut scene after cut scene (i.e. - "Oh look, you attracted a sour shellybean!" then "Oh no, a sour profitamole! Too bad!" F off, Leafos, seriously.).
I barely had enough time to act, before I realized the new British-speaking boy that was helping completely got the better of us and decided to smash up the garden! He destroyed almost every pinata. I fumbled with the controls clumsily trying to correct the situation, and eventually I found the "boot player from garden" option. I was furious.
Not because I was angry my pinatas were destroyed (I barely even knew them), but because this could have all been very easily prevented had there been some type of private gardening option. What gives? Did I miss something? If I did, it was very poorly explained. Afterwards Jess and I left the jerk some pretty lousy feed back and I even submitted a complaint, but the damage was done. We stuck around for a few minutes to continue gardening, but our experience had been soured. We just didn't feel like playing after that.
Ten minutes of online Viva Pinata co-op, spoiled by one person.
Why wouldn't they allow private gardening? And why on earth would the garden's difficulty not scale to the person who was hosting it? I shouldn't have to sit there helplessly through endless cut scenes while a jerk demolishes my garden.
Overall experience...obviously in the toilet. It truly was a trouble in paradise.
(I know this was long, and if you stuck with me for my rant...thanks!)