Mario Party 4

Some of my favourite are; Trace race, avalanche, domination and dungeon duos. Trace race, a very simple mini-game yet very addictive. It basically is trying to keep to line that twists, turns and loops. Avalanche is skiing across a basic level against obstacles and an avalanche following you. Pretty simple yet very addictive, one of the better mini-games. Domination is a very basic button bashers paradise. Tapping A as fast as you can to get the longest line of thwomps. Dungeon Duos is a brilliant team mini-game that is great to play when there is a few mates round. Going along a course helping your teammate get past walls and the helping you, helping them across obstacles, this is very hard if you're not much of a team player. Once you have played the mini-games in Story Mode you can practise them whenever you want and if you just want to play mini-games without the board you can.

 

Each mini game has its own unique style of gameplay. Some like Mario Medley requires button bashing with a bit of thought, some like dungeon duos require teamwork and precise timing and some like trace race require perfect precision in direction on the 3d stick. Most of the mini-games are individually different.
The boards themselves are a just likes a normal board game. Roll the dice, and then move round the board collecting coins and stars. There is a limit on the amount of rolls. At the end of each go there is a mini-game. A random type of mini-game will be chosen. (2 vs. 2, 1 vs. 1 vs. 1 vs. 1 vs. 1 and 3 vs. 1. There are from over 50 mini-games to choose from. At the end the stars and coins are counted up and players are rewarded stars for things like most coins and most mini-games won. Not much gameplay is involved in the boards themselves; it is also boring watching the computer have their turn, more like watching an interactive movie.

 

The boards are neatly presented; the characters are all moulded perfectly to their 2d counter parts, right down to Mario moustache and Peaches dress and patterns on it. All the mini-games are bright and colourful and look nice on the eye. Some of the best looking is; Paratrooper Plunge, Booksquirm and three throw. The multiplayer, the sole reason of the game. To party on some brilliantly designed boards and play some mini-games. The party mode is brilliant but if you don't have time the mini-game room is brilliant. Tic tac toe is a brilliant idea, choose you square on the board, play a mini-game and the winner wins the square. The first person to get "tic tac toe, 3 in a row" is the winner.

 

Completing boards is easy but with different difficulty modes, loads of mini-games to play and completing all boards with all players should be keeping playing for ages. The multiplayer will never get boring how ever much you play it.