When the first Mario Party came out, it instantly became a multiplayer classic. The N64 was the perfect platform for the four-player, local multiplayer dynamo that was the Mario Party experience. Over time, the series maintained its appeal while evolving steadily. The introduction of a board game system made the game a much more cohesive experience, and the minigames themselves were more creative and more varied. Of course, the success and virility of the series inspired many clones. But for a long time, none were able to match the quality and quantity offered in Mario Party.
My, how times have changed. Whereas Mario Party was, once upon a time, the seminal party/drinking game, the new Wii incarnation of Mario Party 8 goes to show that even the often-hailed Nintendo is capable of milking a franchise into destruction. The late arrival of this title, in addition to the abundance of competent minigame collections on the system, leaves Mario Party 8 feeling outdated and outclassed.
Mario Party 8 is almost identical to the latter entries in the series except with the trademark Wii addition: motion control. You'll go through the motions of the turn-taking, AI-cheating board game aspects of the game, only the actual games involve some kind of motion control. Much like WarioWare, the game's motions are broken into groups with a set of minigames attached. Some games use the pointer, some use the Excite Truck-style tilt-steering, and so forth.
Like most mini-game compilations, the games themselves are very much hit or miss. There are some great games like "Gun the Runner," which involves one player navigating a platform-laden maze while the others shoot fireballs in his path. But for every good game, there's a boring one like "Breakneck Building," which involves some rudimentary construction like hammering and sawing. This wouldn't inherently be a problem—as this is a prevalent issue throughout the genre—were it not for the fact that most of the "good" games utilize motions already seen in the other Wii mini-game games.
Take "Swing Kings," for example. You swing a baseball bat to hit a ball. Yawn. I have three or four different games on the Wii that star this very minigame. And this one game isn't alone. Indeed, the majority of the minigames generated a very strong feeling of "been there, done that."
To make matters worse, there's a striking lack of polish in some other areas of the title. The interface, for example, is clumsy, with hard-to-navigate menus and some of the old problems that hurt the other Mario Party titles: the absolutely ruthless, cheating, anger-inducing AI, for one. There's some nice integration of the Mii system that helps to make up a little ground, but even that feels familiar. The "Extras Zone" allows you to take your Miis into some of the minigames; something that is not unfamiliar to those who have played the multiplayer in Warioware: Smooth Moves.
While the series once set the pace for minigame compilations, Mario Party 8 has arrived late to the Wii party, and it shows. Most of the good games feel recycled, and the lack of noteworthy improvements to the core formula make the game feel like an archaic exercise in what was once fun but is no longer. Strangely enough, the motion control doesn't really add all that much—a rarity amongst the big Wii titles. For me, this is a no-brainer: skip it. There's plenty—and I mean plenty—of other choices on the system, and you'd probably do better with any of them.
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I find it interesting that you gave the gameplay a complete thrashing yet you still gave the game an 8.5. Very well written review though, but that just stuck out to me.
Wow, I reviewed this game and I only gave it a 4.3. Weird...