Causing more havoc than a meandering bull elephant, Eric-Jon Waugh has returned to sister site Game Career Guide with his design analysis column aimed at students, and this time he's semi-demolishing Rare's Xbox 360 exclusive Viva Pinata, a game you may remember I quite like, in a piece called 'Crime of a Mâché Nation: The Condescension of Viva Piñata'.

And it's spellbinding writing, imho, as he doesn't just get mad, he gets even: "Viva Piñata was supposed to be Microsoft's mainstream breakthrough and Rare's return to form after years of... well, Star Fox Adventures. More than that, it was supposed to be the game that showed why Microsoft paid so much money for Rare, almost five years ago now. The problem is, the game wasn't really meant to carry all this weight. At its core, this is a modest, intimate, and difficult game - difficult in the sense that, despite its charm, it's more exclusive than it is inclusive."

Well, maybe that's just some opening snark. How about the ending paragraph, about 3000 words later? Surely that's a little more pleasant? Let's see... "So what have we learned today? One: stop sucking Shigeru Miyamoto's toes. Two: don't talk down to children. Three: never waste your audience's time." Youch. These are the words of a man grievously wronged by adorable fur-shaded mascots.