Enjoyable and slightly addictive gameplay that is unfortunately extremely limited. Good use of the Wii's motion control.

User Rating: 6.5 | Mario Party 8 WII
By GameReviewGuru | Review Date:
Mario Party 8 is, in essence, just a board game. However, it is stuffed full with tons of random minigames and light, fluffy game goals that can keep your interest for an hour or two. In Mario Party 8, your "game piece" is one of characters from the Mario series and you move around the board by rolling dice and moving a certain amount of spaces based on that dice roll. All board games have a common way of winning and, in Mario Party 8, you win in this game by collecting star pieces that are randomly scattered across the board. While rolling dice and moving, you must choose which directions to turn in the interest of getting closer to those star pieces. The person with the most stars after a certain number of dice rolls is the winner. I found this game goal easy to understand, convenient, and surprisingly addictive. It's easy to understand because there aren't any other complex rules to learn, so even your youngest kids can easily pick up the objective and the entire family can get involved and play this game together. The game is convenient (when compared to a standard board game) because all of the board game pieces are stored in the game and seen on screen. No need to search under sofas or clean up after the game is over; playing a video game-board game is mess-free! Therefore, because the game is simple to understand, requiring few skills to set up, enjoy, and put away, the game is fairly addictive, in my opinion. What also makes this game addictive is its motion control activities: "minigames".

After every player rolls the dice and moves, a random minigame starts. The minigames are very active and engaging, since they heavily incorporate the Wii's motion control (not the motion plus, however). Activities range from paddling, twisting, and turning motions to pressing buttons. At the end of the minigame, a winner or group of winners are awarded coins that can be used to quicken a person's chance of winning. Therefore, while moving wisely across the board is essential, winning minigames is just as important. Often times, the "tables can be turned" when a losing person ends up winning because he or she wins a lot of minigames and overwhelms the other people. Therefore, I think Mario Party 8 can provide a very unpredictable and rewarding board game experience.


With that being said, however, the game is not at all close to perfection. Specifically, the amount of gameplay, or the amount of various things to do in the game, is extremely limited. You can play the board game by yourself or with other people. But that's all the game does! There is no online leaderboards or online multiplayer. Once you play this board game, you probably won't feel like playing it for a while, since there aren't any different things to do. In other words, its extreme lack of gameplay variation severely cripples this game's success.

In conclusion, if you have a group of children who want to play a simple and safe game together, parents should buy and play Mario Party 8 with them. Also, if you need a family-friendly video game to play at a family-get-together or party, you should try this game. However, serious and older gamers should not even bother with this game, since it would never be worth it to them.

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