Description
The Mario Party games popularized the trend of board game
bonanzas with an assortment of varied activities. Each shindig was like
having dozens of games in one, and Mario Party 4 is the wildest multiplayer
get-together Nintendo has ever thrown. Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and an all-star
cast of Mushroom Kingdom regulars have been invited, and there's never a
dull moment as one to four players compete in 50 all-new minigames. With
varied styles of play including racing, target shooting and games of chance,
Mario Party 4 gives partygoers more reasons -- and ways -- to celebrate.
Review
It’s a pretty bold claim but for many, Mario Party is the
best multiplayer game series ever. No need for guns or complicated
role-playing elements here--Mario Party is fun because it’s simple. The
original N64 game created an entirely new subgenre--an unlikely combination
of traditional board games and lots of ultrasimple arcade titles. The idea
is that you travel around the board trying to collect stars, which must be
paid for with coins, and you get coins by competing in minigames, which
occur at the end of every round. These minigames generally don’t last longer
than a minute or two, and many are based on old Game & Watch titles. There
are over 50 minigames in Mario Party 4, and each involves either a
free-for-all, two players against two, or one against three (depending where
you land on the board at the end of your turn). These can involve anything
from skydiving to basketball dunking, or car racing to hide-and-seek, to
name a few.
Admittedly, this basic description of the gameplay might not
sound too exciting, and indeed if you’re playing with less than three human
opponents it can be pretty tedious. But play it with the full complement of
non-virtual rivals and the game’s infinite capacity for cheating,
backstabbing, and ganging up allows it to completely transcend the humdrum
sum of its parts. There’s nothing terribly new in this third sequel except
that the graphics are much improved and the minigames are all new, but that
really misses the point: get this game out at Christmas instead of Trivial
Pursuit and you’ll wonder how you ever got through the holiday without it.
