Mario Party 4

"Never have I partied so hearty!"

Finally,Nintendo releases a worthy sucessor to one of my favorites on the N64,Mario party 2!Mario Party 2 was one of my favorite games,and this game is no exeption to the quality of the MP series and is a great game for you and your friends to hang out and play,just dont end up like me and try to strangle your best bud over losing a round of trace race!On to the review...

Gameplay 10/10:If youve never played a Mario Party game before,here's how it goes.You basically take turns rolling a dice cube moving spaces on a giant gameboard trying to collect stars.The person who collects the most stars at the end will win,being crwned the PARTY STAR!A twist on the gameplay are the items that you can buy on special spaces on the board that can either help you to collect stars quicker,or cheat your buddy out of victory to claim the position of party star for your backstabbing self!

Integrated into this board game struture are varied mini- games,which besides moving around on the board,are the meat of the game.The mini games are in a huge variety of themes,most of them being wacky Mario-esque type predicaments,from skiiing to fishing,to shooting hoops,to umm take out food,this game is great for you and friends to play for hours on end.Great fun!

Story 5/10:All of the Mario gang are standing around in a field for no reason(seriously),when independence day style, a dark cloud emerges over the castle...from the cloud emerges the PARTY CUBE!!From the party cube emerge 4 intergalactic partiers who want you to chill when them!And fun ensues... The story isnt all that great,but its there and in a good looking fmv too!

Music 8/10:The music is great,for each of the themed boards there is a track of music set to that theme in style.Its not the best so i'm just giving it an 8.

Graphics 9/10:The graphics are a significant upgrade from thier n64 counterparts and there are some great looking water effects thrown in there,the minigames are really colorful and everythings good looking and runs great with no slowdown as far as I can see.

Overall 8/10:This game is one of the high points of the series and will provde hours of fun playing through the night with your friends,and practicing trying to smoke the CPU on very hard mode or playing story mode,ths game has awesom replay value and there always room to improve.Be warned though,that this game can get old without people to play it with so like always you should rent first to see if its for you.Good luck and like always...HAVE FUN!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/06/02, Updated 02/06/03