Mario Party 8 (Wii)

I was hoping that because there are so many great (and classic) games relating to Mario, that this game would be another great one considering the £32.99 price tag. I was thrilled when I played this game for the first few times because it exceeded my expectations.

So what's to like about this game? First of all, there's a TON of things to do! The main part of the game has you playing as a Mario character (you get to choose from quite a few different characters including Boo, Wario, Waluigi, and Dry Bones). There are 6 different boards you can choose from (from Donkey Kong to a haunted house to a monopoly-type board), all with the same goal only completely different looks. Each player takes a turn moving around the board to collect coins and ultimately get a star. After all 4 players go, you play a minigame (some are 4 player, some are 2 vs. 2, and some are 1 vs. 3) and the winner gets coins. When a player gets a star, another star appears on another part of the board and you start all over again attempting to get the new star. With other tricks and surprises (like candy pieces that allow you to do certain things and mystery board spaces), no game is the same and there's a lot of competition.

There are other games you can play besides the main game. The second game option allows you to choose from a selection of other games. For these, you play minigames and each win puts you ahead of the other players. For example, the goal of one game is to win 5 minigames to ultimately crown yourself the winner. Another has you flipping "tiles" after every win and whoever has flipped the most tiles at the end of the game, wins.

After every game you play, you get a certain number of "carnival cards". With these carnival cards you can buy more options for even more gameplay. You can buy "figures" which are basically collectible figures of random Mario-themed items and you can display them sort of as trophys. You can also buy other really fun minigames that you can play anytime you want.

And what's not to like? As I mentioned above, the price isn't all that great. However, because most Wii games are the same price, and because this game brings a ton of entertainment to my family, I was willing to forget how much I paid for it. Still, this means that you need to REALLY like this game in order to be ok with the price. Second, when it's just two people against the system, the waiting time between turns can be a pain. Other than that, this game is all positives.

If you're interested in buying a game for your Wii that is fun for the whole family, be sure to check this one out!

I'd been looking forward to this game for ages and it doesn't disappoint. There's the main boardgame, a one player challenge game which isn't particularly taxing to complete and a load of extras. The best thing is the huge amount of minigames which all use the wiimote very well, looks like there are:

27 Duel
18 4 Player
10 2 vs 2
9 1 vs 3
5 Battle
3 Challenge

The perfect game to get a few mates round, have a few beers and laugh at games such as Tightrope walking, lasso-ing, 2 player boat rowing & spinning giant eyeballs (needs to be seen to be believed!) to name but a few. I can't believe who dreams this stuff up, but it's genius!

Only nag is that for some reason gameplay on mine is in 4-3 aspect rather than all the start and menus which appear in 16-9 on my widescreen telly. Checked all the settings are widescreen so not sure why this is the case.

Well, its really not as bad as 3 stars, truth be told, I'd given it 3.5 if I could. So let me break it down:

PROS
-Up to 4 players of fun.
-A variety of different types of gameplaying between 4 people: Tag team, Battle Royal (ie free for all), 2v2, 3v1, 1 player challenge etc.
-Good use of the wii controller. No really, they make a great use of ALL axis of the controller.
-Very easy to get the hang of the game. The controls are so simple, its quite nice.
-TONS of minigames. It'll take you a while to play all the minigames.

CONS
-Perhaps its a game that's best rented out, as opposed to purchased. The longevity and novelty of the game is quite short-lived once you unlock the majority of the minigames. Though the game feels quite fresh when you have friends over playing it for the first time, and then it becomes quite the laugh.
-The guy in the tophat (the host of the game) can get annoying quite quickly. He introduces you into the game, and I wish there was a way to skip him altogether. But I suppose you have to bare in mind that this game was made for 8-10 yr olds.

Like I said, its really not as bad as 3 stars, but just doesn't have that 4-staryness about it. But if I was to judge it as a "minigame" it merits that 4 stars I reckon.