Mario Party 5 Impressions

Nintendo is showing off a playable version of the next game in the Mario Party series, Mario Party 5. The game provides players with a wide collection of minigames set up to be played in a board game-like format.

The star collecting board game isn't in the demo being shown on the floor at E3, but a handful of the new minigames are available. The game contains the usual suspects for a Mario side project, including Toad, Luigi, Waluigi, Wario, Peach, and Yoshi.

Some of the minigames we saw including one where all four players must remain on a large ice block while tons and tons of penguins run in from the left, attempting to sweep up the players and push them off in the process. Another had a Mr. Driller-like thing going on, asking players to butt stomp their way through a series of blocks to get to a finish line at the bottom. Another has the party attendees climbing a beanstalk to see who can climb the highest before time runs out. Yet another has the foursome watching some dancing piranha plants and attempting to select the one dancing differently than the pack.

There were only a small handful of minigames available in the demo version, but it's expected that the final product should have several times as many games to choose from when the game ships to stores later this year.