Gameplay: 7
Graphics: 6
Sound: 6
Value: 5
Tilt: 5
The Good: Lots of fun mini-games that make good use of the Wiimote.
The Bad: Do we really need another mini-game collection on the Wii? Graphics could have been better even on the Gamecube. Chance factors in a little too much, even for Mario Party. No widescreen support.
Mario Party has made its debut on the Wii with Mario Pary 8. Developer Hudson has stuck to the Mario Party formula to bring another iteration of the game that will be very familiar to fans of the series.
At its core, Mario Party 8 is a collection of mini-games that are played out through a board game interface rather than by just selecting from a pile of mini-games and playing them one at a time. Granted you can still do that if you desire, but the main mode of play is the Party Tent, in which 1 – 4 players compete on a game board to see who can gather the most stars. As you travel through 1 of the 6 unique game boards, you will race to reach a star located on a random space. At the end of every round of turns, a mini-game is played between all 4 players, sometimes a 4 way battle sometimes 2 on 2, and other times 1 on 3. The winner/winners of the minigame will receive coins as a prize, which are used to buy stars, candies that do different things from the candy shops, and paying for services offered by characters on the game board; such as a dolphin that will take you ahead several spaces for a fee. The game plays out like this for a predetermined number of turns, then the game ends and the player with the most stars wins. There are also 3 bonus star awarded at the end of play for such things as who won the most mini-games or who moved the most spaces.
Mario Party 8 makes very good use of the Wiimote’s motion sensing capabilities in many of its games. There are games in which you shake a soda can as fast as you can to try to get it to spray the highest, balance on a tightrope, row a boat, hammer nails, and punch a statue, among other things, all doing the motion you would expect with the wiimote. Most of the motion sensing games are spot on, but then there are several games that have you holding the wiimote sideways and using the d-pad and the 1 and 2 buttons. A few of these games are fun, but several of them are obvious rehashes of older games, and several just aren’t all that fun.
Each of the boards is rather unique, and a few of them offer up some new elements to the game. DK’s Treetop Temple is your basic Mario Party game board, where there are several intersecting paths that eventually work around into a circle. Shy Guy’s Perplex Express is a large train where players work their way through the several compartments of the train to get to the star at the front, and then back over the roof in a big circle to do it again. Koopa’s Tycoon Town is one of the boards that offer a new element to the game. Rather than collecting stars, players circle the board investing in hotels. If you own a hotel, you get a star for owning it, but other players can come along and invest more than you to steal it from you. Once enough coins are invested into a hotel, it upgrades from a one star to a two star, and finally a 3 star hotel. Play gets hectic towards the end as players are trying to invest enough money to keep their properties safe from their greedy opponents. The other game board to offer up something interesting is King Boo’s Haunted Hideaway, in which players cannot see further ahead then the room they are in, and must explore the haunted house in order to find King Boo and the star. There are several dead ends that will send you back to the beginning, and once King Boo is found, all players are kicked out of the house and it is reset with rooms switched around.
The presentation of Mario Party really does nothing to set it above the many other collections of mini-games that are out for the Wii right now. This game could have easily been put out on the Gamecube, and could have looked better even there. The graphics have not been updated at all from previous iterations of the game. Another huge blow is the total lack of widescreen support. Instead, there are gaudy plaid borders on both sides of the screen to fill the extra space. There really isn’t any excuse for this and its total laziness on Hudson’s part.
Another big problem with the game is how ridiculously chance driven it is. Mario Party has always had a huge chance factor, which made it a lot of fun for even those in last place because things could turn around at any moment. But the levels of chance in this version are just too much. Throwing a dart at a quickly spinning wheel is used to decide most of the chance related elements, such as using a candy to move to another players spot and choosing which player, or picking a player to steal coins from. There is nothing more frustrating than playing a duel mini-game against the player in 1st place, and then throwing the dart and hitting the 1 coin mark.
Despite its flaws, Mario Party 8 is still a solid collection of mini-games, several of which make excellent use of the wiimote and are a blast to play with friends. If you don’t already have a few mini-game collections, this is certainly a good choice, as bringing all the mini-games together into the board game can make it more interesting than just picking a game to play out of a list. Problem being, there are already so many mini-game collections on the Wii, unless you are a fan of the series, or need another mini-game compilation, this isn’t necessarily worth the $49.99.
Graphics: 6
Sound: 6
Value: 5
Tilt: 5
The Good: Lots of fun mini-games that make good use of the Wiimote.
The Bad: Do we really need another mini-game collection on the Wii? Graphics could have been better even on the Gamecube. Chance factors in a little too much, even for Mario Party. No widescreen support.
Mario Party has made its debut on the Wii with Mario Pary 8. Developer Hudson has stuck to the Mario Party formula to bring another iteration of the game that will be very familiar to fans of the series.
At its core, Mario Party 8 is a collection of mini-games that are played out through a board game interface rather than by just selecting from a pile of mini-games and playing them one at a time. Granted you can still do that if you desire, but the main mode of play is the Party Tent, in which 1 – 4 players compete on a game board to see who can gather the most stars. As you travel through 1 of the 6 unique game boards, you will race to reach a star located on a random space. At the end of every round of turns, a mini-game is played between all 4 players, sometimes a 4 way battle sometimes 2 on 2, and other times 1 on 3. The winner/winners of the minigame will receive coins as a prize, which are used to buy stars, candies that do different things from the candy shops, and paying for services offered by characters on the game board; such as a dolphin that will take you ahead several spaces for a fee. The game plays out like this for a predetermined number of turns, then the game ends and the player with the most stars wins. There are also 3 bonus star awarded at the end of play for such things as who won the most mini-games or who moved the most spaces.
Mario Party 8 makes very good use of the Wiimote’s motion sensing capabilities in many of its games. There are games in which you shake a soda can as fast as you can to try to get it to spray the highest, balance on a tightrope, row a boat, hammer nails, and punch a statue, among other things, all doing the motion you would expect with the wiimote. Most of the motion sensing games are spot on, but then there are several games that have you holding the wiimote sideways and using the d-pad and the 1 and 2 buttons. A few of these games are fun, but several of them are obvious rehashes of older games, and several just aren’t all that fun.
Each of the boards is rather unique, and a few of them offer up some new elements to the game. DK’s Treetop Temple is your basic Mario Party game board, where there are several intersecting paths that eventually work around into a circle. Shy Guy’s Perplex Express is a large train where players work their way through the several compartments of the train to get to the star at the front, and then back over the roof in a big circle to do it again. Koopa’s Tycoon Town is one of the boards that offer a new element to the game. Rather than collecting stars, players circle the board investing in hotels. If you own a hotel, you get a star for owning it, but other players can come along and invest more than you to steal it from you. Once enough coins are invested into a hotel, it upgrades from a one star to a two star, and finally a 3 star hotel. Play gets hectic towards the end as players are trying to invest enough money to keep their properties safe from their greedy opponents. The other game board to offer up something interesting is King Boo’s Haunted Hideaway, in which players cannot see further ahead then the room they are in, and must explore the haunted house in order to find King Boo and the star. There are several dead ends that will send you back to the beginning, and once King Boo is found, all players are kicked out of the house and it is reset with rooms switched around.
The presentation of Mario Party really does nothing to set it above the many other collections of mini-games that are out for the Wii right now. This game could have easily been put out on the Gamecube, and could have looked better even there. The graphics have not been updated at all from previous iterations of the game. Another huge blow is the total lack of widescreen support. Instead, there are gaudy plaid borders on both sides of the screen to fill the extra space. There really isn’t any excuse for this and its total laziness on Hudson’s part.
Another big problem with the game is how ridiculously chance driven it is. Mario Party has always had a huge chance factor, which made it a lot of fun for even those in last place because things could turn around at any moment. But the levels of chance in this version are just too much. Throwing a dart at a quickly spinning wheel is used to decide most of the chance related elements, such as using a candy to move to another players spot and choosing which player, or picking a player to steal coins from. There is nothing more frustrating than playing a duel mini-game against the player in 1st place, and then throwing the dart and hitting the 1 coin mark.
Despite its flaws, Mario Party 8 is still a solid collection of mini-games, several of which make excellent use of the wiimote and are a blast to play with friends. If you don’t already have a few mini-game collections, this is certainly a good choice, as bringing all the mini-games together into the board game can make it more interesting than just picking a game to play out of a list. Problem being, there are already so many mini-game collections on the Wii, unless you are a fan of the series, or need another mini-game compilation, this isn’t necessarily worth the $49.99.
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