Random Review: Mario Party 8

Written by Coldguy

Friday, 04 July 2008 00:00

Alright, I am dog sitting, the two dogs are here happy as can be becuase I am in the same room as them. In the room there is a Wii and a copy of Mario Party 8, so I played it and thought "What the hell, it is something to kill time."

A little background before I start: I played and loved Mario Party (N64), had a friend who got the 2nd one and I played it and was dissipointed, so I stoped playing the series. From all the reviews that are out there things are the same for the remainder of the series so I lost touch with it. I tried this to see if my kid enjoyment would be open again when I played this verison.

It wasn't.

Ok the Mario party game itself was not bad, seriously the game is fun for everyone to play. You start off on a board and the goal is to collect as many stars as possible, at the end of the game whoever has the most stars wins. However the catch is that minigames are played inbetween turns to get coins, which are used for a tie breaker or currency to help you in the game beat your competitiors. Now if the game was like that (just like the first one was) I would have no issue. However this game is the prime example why the series is mocked at more often then a Paris Hilton single, lack of stregiety.

What do I mean? Well I played a board where the sole objective is to get to the end of a LONG road to find a treasure chest with a star inside of it, that's it. Now there are spaces where you can use coins to get on shortcuts to the end, but are opinional, but quickly find maniditory in order to keep up with the competiors. Now what can turn this simple concept into a pile of crap...two big things.

First is the candy, the candy gives you a special ability that you can use for one turn, it could be getting an extra roll, dueling for a star against a competor, advancing to another player's spot on the board, etc. You can buy candy and use it whenever you like, if they left it at that I see no issue. What they did is have special spaces where candy is given to you for free, and some mystery blocks also give you candy for landing on them. This creates a race to see who gets the best candy first, and knows exactly when to use them to inflict maximum damage.

Second is the LAST 5 TURN twist. This is where things go out the window when it comes to making a plan to beat the game. First the 4th place person gets a dueling candy (the best one to get in the game) just for being 4th place, extra coins and money bags are placed on the board making everyone get a lot more cash really quickly, third another "quirk" happens to the board, that will either seal the victory or force defeat. What little planning you did to get into a good position is now at a wash due to the host trying to get the worst player to make an epic comeback with luck.

The minigames are fun, some of them are tricky to do, others are just plain dull. They use the wiimote to the best of its ability and allow you to have a sense that no two minigames are alike (there are a ton of them in here so it will be awhile until you used them all). A battle minigame occurs every 5 turns where a pot is made and the winner takes a giant pot of coins. This is where you can do some serious damnage to your adversaries by taking all the coins away from them and spending it to get the lead.

So what can I say about this game that was not already been said? Well...they will keep coming out with sequals becuase they sell really well to little kids, and they enjoy it. The game itself is fun from the hardcore to the casual, but they add too many "gotya" things that allow the game to be more chanced based then stregitic based. Seriously, getting a star becuase you did not have any stars...that is the same as the little league trophy, everyone gets it so they do not feel like a loser.

I would say unless you have a lot of parties to pass on it, might be worth a rent to check it out, just make sure you have some friends to share the experience with. Until next time party like its 1999 and I will see you in the next post.

Set as favorite

Comments (1)