Product Description

Roll up, roll up! The carnival is in town and it's time to party! Join Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, DK and more of your favourite Nintendo characters as they compete across five brand new game boards and more than 60 new minigames to win the coveted prize: a year's supply of candy! But Bowser isn't about to let them get away with it... For the first Mario Party on Wii, up to four players roll virtual dice and move around the game boards (ranging from a haunted house to a moving train and a treasure island) before competing in crazy minigames that make full use of the Wii Remote; such as tightrope walking, skipping, snowboarding, boat rowing, lassoing and even cake decorating. As well as the main, madcap multiplayer game, Mario Party 8 also features a special single-player only mode, a minigame-only mode, a bazaar where you can unlock new minigames and goodies, and a mode made specifically for playing as Mii characters!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #243 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Nintendo
• Released on: 2007-08-03
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: Nintendo Wii
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .44 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Preview
Although they love their sequels as much as any company, Nintendo aren’t usually ones to go in for yearly updates. The Mario Party series, developed by Bomberman creators Hudson, is their only example of the phenomena. As such, the series was always guaranteed to make an early appearance on the Wii – and with good reason too since its mix of board game antics and multiplayer mini-games are perfectly suited to the motion control of the Wii remote. Whereas some of the previous sequels have seemed a little unnecessary, this one actually feels like a brand new game. There are six new boards and fourteen different playable characters from amongst the usual Mushroom Kingdom pantheon. There’s also a new power-up system replacing the "orbs" of previous games with "candy". These allow characters to transform into different forms to avoid traps and nobble other players, ranging from an airplane, to a bowling ball and a vampire.

Of course what’s most anticipated about the game is the 70 plus different mini-games, as usual ordered into 1 vs. 3, 2 vs. 2 and free-for-all games. These involve such activities as using the Wii remote to ride a water ski, tightrope walking, lassoing barrels, paddling a rowing boat with a partner, shooting on a target range and being the first to give your pet Chomp a wash. The games and presentation may all seem very cute but as ever the game is an expert at tempting you to cheat and conspire against your fellow players at every opportunity, making this the one family board game you won’t mind having an argument over.
HARRISON DENT

Manufacturer's Description

All the old favourites including Mario, Luigi, Peach and Yoshi are back in this latest Mario Party installment, along with a couple of new faces, such as Blooper and Hammer Bro, who previously appeared for the first time in the original Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Players must move around the board by throwing a dice and at the end of each turn they are faced with a humorous yet challenging mini-game. This really is the perfect game to play against friends and family thanks to the multiplayer mode which allows you and your friends to team up against each other in both two versus two and one against all challenges.

Combine this zany board game action with the Wii Remote and Mario Party 8 makes for a highly-charged, dynamic experience, with unique and exciting gameplay styles on offer for each mini-game. Such mini-games include a snowboard race, a race on a tight rope, a boat rowing race and even a cake decoration contest. The Wii Remote adds a new level of comfort and novelty to gameplay as some mini-games require holding the Wii Remote vertically, sideways and even like a TV remote pointing at the screen. It also enables the player to cruise seamlessly through the game’s numerous different modes. What’s more in certain modes, players can use their very own personalised Mii characters within specific mini-games.

The game’s main mode, Party Tent, challenges players to take on the computer or up to three friends in a turn-based battle. Each board features different challenges but as a general rule, players have a set number of turns to collect as many stars as they can. Mini-games played in party mode vary depending on the number of players.

If you just can’t get enough of the many mini-games, you can devote your time entirely to playing them in the Mini-Game Tent, moving from game to game and honing your skills. Elsewhere players can put their skills to the test in the Star Battle Arena where they must take on and defeat the computer. Other zones include the Extras Zone and the Fun Bazaar all of which add fun and diverse elements to the classic game.

In addition, aspiring Mario Party 8 masters can use the game’s multiplayer capabilities to play with up to three other people. Friends and family can battle it out in Party Tent mode, Mini-Game Tent and the Extras zone.

Customer Reviews

Awful
I was looking forward 2 playing this game but it sucked how others liked this at all is amazing Single player is awful multi player only slightly better

A dissapointing cash in (ka-ching)!
I bought this game with high hopes. It's the eigth game in a sucessful franchise and the first to appear on the Wii. It seemed that this of all games (think of all the mini games) would have been a match made in heaven with the Wii's motion sensing control system, however we are given a half hearted effort from Nintendo which seems to have had nothing more in mind than cashing in.

I haven't played a Mario party game since the original on the N64 and the first thing I noticed was that it has hardly moved on at all. Sure it worked fine at the time, and if it isn't broke you shouldn't fix it, but you would think by the eigth installment it would have something substantially different about it (ka-ching). The first thing to greet you in this game is an annoying creature in a top hat, who makes annoying noises and gives you loads of unwanted text to crawl through. Then you actually begin the game and you realise it isn't in widescreen, it's instead confined to a box in the centre of your screen. Combine that with the murky graphics and it's a very poor effort on the visuals (ka-ching). The game itself feels quite tired, and is only remotely fun when playing with friends. If you try and play against the AI it just feels so fixed, it's really hard to win against. This is especially frustrating when you have to play against the AI to unlock the final board, which is really more a game of luck than skill. The new maps lack any real imagination apart from one that involves investing in hotels. It isn't great, but at least it trys to be different.

All that wouldn't matter, however, if the minigames themselves worked well with the Wii controller. Unfortunately they don't. None of the minigames have any real depth or are in any way rememorable. They last for around 30 seconds and do very little exciting. The Wii controls are implemented so generically they don't enhance the experience at all, feeling more tacked on than being designed motion control in mind. I remember great minigames from the original Mario Pary on the N64, including my favourite bumper balls (great fun). There is nothing like that in this game, which includes rediculously bland ideas such as shaking a can to see who can make it fizz up the highest. The minigames feel cheap, badly designed and poorly implemented (ka-ching).

I was wondering if I were perhaps being to harsh on this game, after all it is for kids. However having now played Mario Karts Wii, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl (both quality games) I now know that Nintendo is capable of so much more. This game is blatently a cash in, we can see it from the figures. Mario Karts is a brilliant game but the quality has been maintained by only releasing one MK game on every console. Equally Super Smash Bros. (another good game) began life on the N64, and is now on it's third installment, eqauling one game per console. However Mario Party also began life on the N64 but is now on it's eigth installment, that means over three games per console, no wonder the qualities significantly lower (ka-ching). This is a poor, half hearted effort and really is not worth the purchase. Go and get Raving Rabbids if you want a good mini game compilation!

Endless fun!
Well, when i first bought the wii i got a package which included this game as well, when i first started it up and began playing i was bored, i had no idea what i was doing or what the point of the game was, it went into it's boix and did not see the daylight for another few months!

I then however had some friends round, they looked through my games and wanted to play this, i told them it was rubbish bu they insisted, when we started up the game and began clicking around i realised that it actually wasn't hard to understand at all, in fact it was really simple!

There are so many games in here it is unbelievable! We spent hours playing on it and all of the mini games and the extras zone, then when they had gone home i moved onto play he adventure mode as you could call it, well it is basically playing a board game, the one on one with the computer is fun and simple and all the boards are completely different with different rules and suprises.

You can even play the board game in multiplayer, this is loads of fun and it'll have the whole room in tears, the simpleness of the idea makes it that so much more fun and enjoyable, and the best part is, no one cares if they win or loose, it really is the taking part and the having fun tha counts. Even the mini games are fun as single player.

Overall this is a great game for anyone whether it be by yourself or with friends, the music as usual is completely annoying but who cares, the graphics are good and the use of the controller on all the mini games and in the extras zone is superb and really interactive! Definite keeper, would reccomend!