MS Gamer's Day: Viva Pinata 2 details leaked, uses camera and cards

Bloody hell. Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise is subject to the leak treatment this morning, ahead of Microsoft's Gamer's Day in San Francisco today, with this NeoGaf poster claiming the newly-revealed game will feature support for physical cards and Xbox 360's Visions Camera.

The news comes from a visit to the studio a few weeks ago.

VP2 (slated for September):

I will only touch on one feature here, as GI already touched on many of the more traditional improvements. This feature is extremely cool though, in two ways.

• VP2 uses the Vision Camera in combination with physical cards sorta like Eye of Judgement. It basically scans a small code on the card, when it's being held up in front of the camera, and this can both insert custom designed pinatas, unlock buildings or abilities, change the weather and many other things. We were told how Rare had designed a moose that got a big, red nose only around christmas time... and this could be passed around with these cards.
• So the game also got a photo mode. Cool, but that's not the best! This photo mode is able to interpret the pictures and create the above-mentioned code based on the picture. Basically, you will have a card generator available on the internet! Imagine this: you have created this really cool pinata and instead of the tiresome task of sending it only to selected friends on Live, you can take a picture of it, get the code/card generated and share it on a forum. Instantly everyone will be able to get the pinata in their game and since the camera can also read from LCD screens, ipods, zunes etc., there is little to no hassle. Now THAT'S sharing!

You can read up about all the other, substantial leaks on Microsoft's planned announcements today right here. Thanks, Psychotext.