Review: Mario Party 9 (Wii)

By Wayne Webb

Mario Party 9 is the eighth in this series of games – it’s basically a giant board game brought to life. It features the classic cast of heroes and villains from the multi title Mario series and a host of mini games to fill the gaps and add some serious video game action to the meta-game that wraps around all the smaller parts. It’s fun, but outdated.

As mentioned, Mario Party uses board game initiatives whereby you use a virtual dice to roll and move around. You can elect to play with real people or against virtual ones provided by the CPU of the console itself. You take turns and the over game is as basic as that, roll the dice, move along the squares until you get to the end and win. Making this more interesting though are all the mini games and digital options built into the game board that come at you in random order to shake things up and even things out.

The Mini Games are standard Nintendo Wii-styled interactions based on movement and timing. You shake, rattle and roll your Wii controller wand in time to the screen instructions to climb, move and fight the bad guys in your way or to reach your mini goal and beat your team mates to get the most points before the end of the game. You are required to beat out the people playing alongside you in cutthroat manner sometimes, as well as defeating bosses and enemies in your way. It’s a lot of fun for kids and people who are fans of the series I am sure.

For anyone with a greater appreciation or standard for video games, they will find this style of game restrictive and time consuming to the point of dullness. This is not really much different than the kinds of games that Nintendo have been putting out for years and the games industry has moved on from these, making this look anachronistic and clumsy by comparison. The turn-based system is frustrating when playing against virtual opponents but adds to the elements when playing against real people. The random placement and similarity of the mini games can lead to frustration and repetitiveness as well.

Pros: Good for fans of the characters, good for multiplayers with low expectations, kids love it.
Cons: Outdated game style, turn based play, repetitive play.

3 Shacks Out Of 5