Pre-Review: Mario Party 8 (Wii)

Geoff’s Take:

The Mario Party franchise is a long and storied one. It was a fresh, interesting idea when the first iteration came out around the turn of the millenium. 7 games later, the franchise’s luster has faded and the games have been scoring around the 70%-75% mark.

I suspect that the Wii version will come in similarly. MP8 has several things going for it: first, it’s the first Mario Party game to take advantage of the new Wii controls, and Nintendo has no doubt been brainstorming some interesting ways to take advantage of this setup. IGN has noted a few of these in its preview; some of the more intriguing games include a jetskiing game and a shooting gallery. MP8 also has the benefit of the board game conceit and the familiar franchise characters, which breathe a bit of freshness into the otherwise somewhat stale gameplay. Finally, it’s one of the few relatively “marquee” titles for the Wii coming out around this time.

Of course, the game also has a few hurdles to overcome. First of all, Rayman Raving Rabbids has beaten it to the minigame collection punch, and managed to pull of its entry with style and a slightly darker sense of humor than many Nintendo fans are accustomed to. Minigames have also become de rigeur for Wii titles, and many of the mechanics that MP8 is covering will be familiar already to Wii owners. Finally, the entire concept of the “minigame game” has inspired some, er, backlash over the past few years.

Bottom line, I would expect Mario Party 8 to score, all other things equal, in the low 7s. Since it’s going to be a relatively name brand title for the Wii’s sketchy lineup, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and go with a 7.4.

Jeff’s Take:

I know that this will probably get me exhiled from Nintendo’s legion of dedicated fans, but the Mario Party games have never really been my thing. I’ve only played a few of them, usually when someone rents it and has a bunch of people over, and while fun in short bursts, has never really completely sparked my interest as a party game in the same way that, say, GoldenEye used to be.

With that being said, our purpose here is to predict the average scores for games, and not predict what we, ourselves, think we’d end up giving the game. However, I can’t help but wonder if people are not only starting to tire of the Mini-game-o-rama on the Wii, but also of the Mario Party franchise itself.

Mario Party is kind of Nintendo’s Madden… they manage to crank out a new version every year. While Nintendo has sort of an advantage in that they could completely change the mechanics of the game and add new kinds of games, the fact is that the games all manage to more or less boil down to the same thing. While this is definitely true of the Madden franchise, people actually do seem very interested in the “roster updates”, as it ties into something they love in real-life… the same cannot really be said for Mario Party.

While the game will actually be fun in short bursts, like at parties, will the Wii Remote presentation really add that much value to the game? I think this could go both ways, as the Wii Remote functionality may actually not seem that accurate for several of the mini-games and could potentially frustrate the players who may already think they’re not in control of their own destinies already… perhaps this is ok as a party game, but for reviewers, I think this will be death.

What I think it will ultimately come down to is how sick reviewers are of Wii mini-games and how sick reviewers are of the Mario Party franchise itself versus the “freshness” that the Wii Remote adds to the game minus the frustration of the remote not working quite as well as it should (got all that?) The last game in the series did not fair very well with reviewers and I think this game will probably only do slightly better because of the Wii controls (despite their imperfectness)… I predict a 6.8.