The $50 admission price to this party just isn't worth it.
MP8 is broke into 5 different sections. The first is the party tent which is where you play the main game. Then there is the Star Battle Arena where you play a bunch of games to become a superstar. Next is the Minigame tent where, you guessed it, play minigames you’ve played. And extras zone, self explanatory. And the Fun Bazaar where you can buy new things like extra minigames, a very hard mode and more.
MP8 is like all the other Mario Party games. You play on a virtual game board to earn stars and become the winner. There are six boards in MP8. Each one has its own theme based upon a certain Mario character; such as DK’s Treetop or King Boo’s Haunted Mansion. Each board has its own twist on how you get the star to add some verity. For example Boo’s Haunted Mansion is packed with rooms you need to roam through to find King Boo who will give you a star, for a fee of course. These twists work great on some boards, but others are just plain dumb. In Goomba’s Booty Boardwalk all it is; is a big straight line to the star, it can take nearly 25 minutes to get there. Then once you get the star you go all the way back to start and have to do the entire process again, sounds like fun to me… What happened to the fun boards of the original Mario Parties on the N64? Since Mario Party hit the GC they have gone down in quality, and it seems like it will continue on Wii.
Okay, enough talk about the boards, lets talk about the minigames. Surely the big selection of minigames make up for the boring boards, right? No, not at all. There are quite a few minigames in MP8, but most of them are boring, or don’t use the Wiimote at all. That’s right; some minigames don’t even use the Wiimote motion sensing or pointer at all. That was supposed to be the big draw for this game; the motion sensing was going to save the franchise. Okay, what about the ones that use motion sensing, are they fun? Once again, no. Most of them are boring and just tedious to do. And don’t get me started on the selection of games. There are only 18 free for all games. While there are 47 duel games? Why are there so many duel minigames but not nearly as many free for all games? Oh and have fun playing with that computer on your team. The AI in the game is horrible; you could almost say the AI is mildly retarded. In minigames and on the boards they will do things that just make no sense. You want to know the worst part about MP8? Just how unoriginal it is. The boards lack creativity, since many of them are very similar to boards in earlier Mario Party games. And many of the minigames have been done before. Many of them are minigames from past Mario Party games with tacked on motion control. Then many have already been done in Rayman Raving Rabbits or Wario Ware Smooth Moves, and those games did it better! Not only that, but the game relies on luck too much to win. All Mario Party games had some luck involved and that was okay. But this is too much. Someone could not win a single minigame and still win the overall game; it’s true it really did happen.
Let’s go onto the graphics. Most of the game looks like a low quality Game Cube game. Nothing pops out, nothing is impressive, it is all plain and boring. And this is all coming from a game that doesn’t support widescreen! A widescreen mode can be added to a game in a matter of days, in this day in age no game should not have widescreen. It really is the final straw. This game sucks, it is a rushed, quick cash in for Nintendo.
Overall MP8 is a piece of crap rushed out so Nintendo can make a quick buck. MP8 is a slap in the face for what Nintendo and Wii stand for. It has none of the quality Nintendo is known for, or the uniqueness, innovation, or fun that Wii stands for. There are much better minigame collections on Wii already like Rayman Raving Rabbits or Wario Ware. MP8 is the worst game I’ve played on Wii, yes worse then Red Steel. It is boring, unoriginal, lacking, and overall a mediocre game. You should avoid this game at all costs.