Vol. 4, No. 7, July 2007
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Video Game Review
Mario Party 8, Nintendo Wii
If there’s one video game that is actually cool to play at parties, it’s a
Mario Party game. Nintendo brings Mario, Luigi and the rest of the Nintendo cast to its newest console, the Wii, in the latest of its multiplayer-geared games with
Mario Party 8.
As with the other games in the franchise, you play with one to four players on giant game boards full of items, paths, and tons of mini-games. The objectives are to get as many coins and stars as possible and do everything imaginable to finish with the most stars of all the players.
Mario Party 8 features the Nintendo crew in a carnival setting, and game boards range from Boo’s haunted maze board to Bowser’s cutthroat star-stealing level.
Mario Party 8 is similar to its predecessors in that many of its mini-games revolve around characters competing in simple tasks such as sawing a log or rowing a boat, but it is different in one key aspect—its utilization of the Nintendo Wii remote.
Players don’t just statically sit there and slam on a controller, but instead actually perform the actions they are doing in the game. One minute you may be waving your hand up and down to paint a fence faster than your opponent, and the next you may be wildly swirling the remote over your head to lasso more barrels than anybody else. All this movement makes
Mario Party 8 more fun and competitive than any of the other
Mario Party games, and it is very conducive to party settings.
Mario Party 8 can be played by a single person against the computer, but, as the title suggests, it is much more fun as a multiplayer game to which you challenge your friends. It’s also appropriate for all ages, so you can be defeating your little brother while at the same time being demolished by your grandmother next to you.
Just be careful who you challenge—you wouldn’t want your friends seeing you shown up by grandpa’s lassoing skills.
