Mario Party 8 (Wii, 2007)

Mario Party has never been given GREAT reviews, but the gamers love it because it gives them a chance to get together with their friends. It's Deja Vu' again for Mario Party 8.

Mario Party 8 has kept it simple story wise this time around; There's a carnival, GO PLAY GAMES!

I'll start with the good. Playing with 4 human players is an absolute blast, and the boards all have different goals to achieve in order to win. The graphics have been updated nicely, and any game that incorporated DK as a space is awesome in my book.

However, sound is pretty dull, there aren't many "extra mini-games" to play with you mii, and my biggest problem of all; playing with the computer.

The dice rolls in Mario Party are no longer random or anything goes; it is obvious when the game is getting the computer out of a jam. Lets say your about to land on a star space, it's the comps turn and what do you know? They land on a VS space and take your money; making you unable to get the star that would win the game. This works the other way around as well, but I would like to see some real luck involved. Not computer calculated balancing.

The best part of Mario Party by far is the mini-games; some of them are amazingly fun with the Wii remote and I didn't find many sensor problems. This is also a problem however when playing duel matches. There are no longer mini-game battles after every turn. You have to land on a paticular space to play a 1v1 mini-game. In other word your only going to play a mini-game about 4-5 times a game. However when playing a battle royale Mario Party becomes what it's supposed to be. A mini-game festival with all sorts of different games and styles of game play.

Overall Mario Party is what it is, a party game, so pick this up, invite over three friends, and play until your arm falls off; then return it and get Warioware, trust me you'll enjoy it much more.