Mario Party 8

"The most fun Mario Party (If they didn't ruin it with 7 other games)"

Mario Party 8 is obviously the eighth installment of Mario Party games. But this time it has taken a different approach. Being on the Wii allows this game to use motion sensing and make it more fun. What makes doesn't make this game perfect? Well, the problem is it's just that there's already 7 other Mario Party games. And this one, is not significantly better than any other Mario Party game.

If you don't know what Mario Party games play like, then I'll tell you. It's basically "mario board game". The first move you will have to make is, hit a dice block, that has the numbers 1-10 (With Wii controls, you simply move the remote to hit the dice block). Whatever number you roll, is how many spaces you move on the board. Along the way you may collect items (in Mario Party 8, they're referred to as "Candy") These items can allow you to do things such as steal coins, or use three dice blocks in one turn. Now that you've landed on a space on the board, something will happen depending on what space it is. Generally there are blue spaces and red spaces. Landing on a blue space will award you 3 coins. Landing on a red space will subtract 3 coins. There are many other spaces as well. (And not to mention that in Mario Party, any thing could happen.) Other spaces may include ? spaces, which will do various things depending on the stage you have chosen and where you are in the stage. Another space is the DK space, which landing on it will provide you some kind of help, depending on the stage you have chosen. However landing on DK will cause Bowser spaces to appear on all the spaces that were originally DK spaces. And vice versa.

After everybody has had their turn, the real fun begins. This is when you play a minigame. Winning these minigames will usually award you ten coins. Now in older Mario Party games getting coins is what you really need to get a Star. Which is what the whole objective is when playing Mario Party, is to obtain as many stars as possible. The old way made you pay 20 coins for a star, and everybody would race to the star's location. Which you can play that way in Mario Party 8 as well. However Mario Party 8 uses the method that started in Mario Party 7. Every stage now has their own unique way of obtaining a star. One stage makes you put coins into hotels. Whoever has the most coins invested becomes the owner, and receives the star from that hotel. But if there is a total of 20 coins invested, it becomes a 2 star hotel. And 50 coins makes it a 3 star hotel. Which is all to make the game more enjoyable.

So is this game good? It's not terrible. It has just become a problem for Mario Party, that they're all practically the same game. They don't improve much over the previous one that was made. And sometimes they even add new features that can easily ruin the game. Mario Party games also are completely boring if you wanted to play by yourself. There is usually not much to unlock. And in this game, the graphics are sort of hideous. I generally don't care about graphics, but I think it's kind of poor when a game like this, that doesn't already have a lot to it, lags because a character is on fire. Not to mention that the graphics are not good, they're just somewhat choppy Gamecube graphics.

Despite some negative factors this game also has positive factors. Such as, the motion sensing easily captivates Mario Party and makes it more enjoyable. Also, this game has extra games that you can buy using the games carnival cards. And many of these games are actually quite fun. There is even a game that is the same as Shy Guy says, from older Mario Party games. there is another game, where you ride bikes in Mario Kart fashion. There's not a lot to it, but tilting the Wii Remote sideways makes it a little more enjoyable.

So should you get this game or not? I would say buy this game if you own a Wii. the addition of the Wii remote makes it somewhat of a new game. However, if you completely hated all the other ones, then of course don't buy it. But Nintendo should have put their best effort into Mario Party 8, because if they make more, I won't be buying them, unless they are extremely improved. I think it's ridiculous for them to make a Mario Party game almost every year. I mean, you don't see 4 mario Tennis games on Gamecube, so why should they keep making so many Mario Party games?

Here is my thought process on how I rated Mario Party 8
The game starts off as 10/10 then,
-2 points for the same old same old game
-.3 points for bad graphics
-.5 points for not enough single player content
That leaves us with a 7.2
Bonus
A bonus in any game is something that is not expected, or without the factor, the game would not be worse.
+.5 points for Wii Remote use
+.4 points for the Extra Games
That leaves us with an 8.1 for a rating. Which is closest to an 8.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/02/07