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Anyone thinking of buying the latest Mario Party game expecting to see the latest innovation will be sorely disappointed.  Mario Party is like a license to print money for Nintendo.  They’re not going to “innovate” their way out of a steady paycheck. But we’re in Wii country now.  Players, perhaps rightfully, expect something at least a little different.  Mario Party 8 delivers just that… something a little different.

Get Down Party People

But not that different.   Nintendo characters will still be wandering around various game boards, collecting stars and coins, and playing lots of mini-games.  Being on the Wii and all, one might expect the games to take advantage of the Wii Remote… and one would be correct.  While there’s nothing particularly groundbreaking here, the mini-games are a good showcase for what the Wii Remote can do.

The button mashing games of yesteryear has been replaced with violently shaking the controller.  Thankfully, these kinds of games are few and far between.  Most mini-games take the form of steering some kind of vehicle or pointing at the screen.  Naturally these work very well, especially the point and shoot games.   All told, the quality of the mini-games is a little better than previous efforts thanks to the Wii Remote.

All a-board!

The most impressive additions to Mario Party 8 are the new game boards.  Once you get past the awful circus motif and the incredibly annoying host (some kind of clown thing with a talking hat), you’re in for a real treat.  The developers have pulled the best board ideas from previous Mario Parties and have given each one a unique twist.

Of the six available game boards, only one plays with the regular rules.  The others vary in quality, but they are all pretty interesting.  Of these, the two big winners are King Boo’s Haunted Hideaway and Koopa’s Tycoon Town. 

Haunted Hideaway utilizes a randomly generated board with stars that are hidden in some of the rooms.  Part of the strategy here is deciding whether to follow your opponent along the same path in the hopes of beating him to a star or striking out on your own into unexplored territory.

Tycoon Town is a take-off on Monopoly where players invest coins into hotels around the board.  The more coins you invest, the more stars you accumulate.  Of course a rival player can steal your hotels by investing more coins than you.  It’s a nasty, cutthroat game board.

I want Candy

Sadly, the excellent orb system from Mario Party 7 has been replaced by candy power-ups.  These sugary sweets generally have predicable effects on the player or his opponents.  There’s no way to alter the game board like you could with the orbs which significantly reduces the impact each player can have on the game. Previous installments of the series allowed you to lay traps for unsuspecting characters with the orbs.

In addition, there seem to be fewer interesting special areas on each board.  I’ve got mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, it makes each board feel a little more generic.  On the other hand, it speeds up the game play a bit because you’re not suffering through as many in-game cutscenes. Mario Party 8 sacrifices a bit of sight-seeing for a faster race around the board.

Stop Playing with Yourself

The solo mode is an abridged trip through each game board with one computer opponent.  It’s as forgettable as you might expect.  Multiplayer is where it’s at and once again, Mario Party 8 delivers.  The gameplay is well worn, but there’s no denying the fun of getting four people in the game room for some hot mini-game action.

There are quite a few extras that naturally focus on the mini-games.  You can also unlock several additional games that aren’t part of the standard mini-game pantheon.  These vary greatly in quality.  The bowling game is a good deal worse than Wii Sports Bowling.  But the moped racing game is pretty solid.  The unlockables are good for an afternoon, but nothing here will keep you coming back for more.

Eight Is Enough

On a very critical note, Mario Party 8 does not include native widescreen support. So if you have one of them fancy pants widescreen TVs, you’ll see bars on the left and right edges of the screen.  You can work around this by setting your Wii to 4:3 mode, but the game should do that automatically.

It’s safe to say that we’re all getting a little sick of mini-games on the Wii, but Mario Party 8 delivers a pretty good batch wrapped up in some interesting board designs.  Perhaps they’ll work out the rest of the kinks in time for Mario Party 9.

Article by: Greg Bemis
Video produced by: Mark Fahey