Mario and his friends return once more for a colourful adventure.
Mario Party has always been a huge favourite amongst Nintendo fans and anybody who just enjoys a fun gaming experience. Mario Party 3 was arguably the pinnacle of the series with it's great mini-games and left fans anticipating the release of the next installment on a next-generation console. Mario and his friends return once more for a colourful adventure filled with more mini-games than ever before, but is the game up to scratch?.
For those unfamiliar to the Mario Party series the conecpt is simple, up to 4 players compete against each other on a large board game style format. They take turns to move around the board and after everyone takes a turn they play a mini-game, depending on what colour the square is the player is standing on determines who will play against who. There are 3 different possibilities, 2v2, 3v1 and 1v1v1v1, which is essentially every man for himself. The aim of the game is to get more stars than your opponents before the game ends. A star is placed around the board game randomly and everybodies aim is to get to it, the money they win off the mini-games will help. You can buy various items on your way like a Warp Pipe that will teleport you to another players' squares on the board, or you could send a Boo after your opponent to steal their gold. Each of these items have been cleverly created to add tactics to what is essentially a very simple game indeed.
The game can get very slow and tedious after a while and you will probably find yourself getting impatient waiting for the next mini-game to come along. It's a shame this half lets it down because the mini-games are some of the best the series has to offer. There are a great mix of games that are both simple and challenging at the same time and deserve a better overall game for them to be showcased.
Being a Mario game you won't be surprised to hear this one is presented in a "cartoony" fashion, so expect to see lots of bright colours throughout, including the maps which feature everything from fairgrounds to haunted houses and gives each map a unique look and feel. The maps are designed surprisingly well and make for both fun and tactical play, it's just a shame you're forced to play it at a snails pace.
The single player is essentially the same as the multiplayer, only you're playing against the computer as oppose to your friends. This isn't exactly a challenge and the only real reason for playing through this repetitive mode is to unlock all of the mini-games for the Mini-Game Mode. Using this mode you can go straight into the action by selecting any mini-game you have played previously. The mini-games are divided up into cateogries such as 2v2 or Battle and make it that much easier to find your favourites.
This game is obviously designed with multiplayer in mind and is ideal to play with as many friends as possible, infact as the title suggests it is perfect for parties. This game can be played by anyone from non-gamers to hardcore gamers and still offers the same satifsfaction to both and this is what makes this game so special. Each mini-game only requires only a few button pushes and slight movements of your analogue stick so even younger kids can get in on the action. So if you do have a lot of friends, or family, or both, then i would definately recommend picking this up, you'll have a blast.