Format: DS

Price: £24.99

Wi-Fi: No

Players: 1-4

Age: 3+

Developer: Nintendo

Many would call the Mario Party series pointless spam, but I think otherwise. The Mario Party series has been a good source of repetition games and with this being the 9^th edition, it’s still as good as ever. 

     Mario Party is a simple fun game for the family in which you take your favourite Mario characters and travel around a board to reach the star. Sounds simple enough, but there are many hazards, obstacles and things to overcome to make it that little more challenging.

     The controls for a game are very simple, but utilise all the ability of the DS in the mini-games with stylus control and microphone action, along with the general DS buttons of A, B, X and Y.

 Story Mode is a dramatic improvement on some of the other story modes I’ve seen in Mario Party games. Instead of just a 1 on 1 battle, first to the star, concept; Nintendo have made the Story Mode just like the ordinary party mode, bar the bonus stars. At the start, Bowser shrinks all of the Mushroom Kingdom gang, and they have to travel through 4 levels to reach Bowser’s special level. After each level there’s a boss too, which adds a challenging aspect to the game.

 Party Mode is the straightforward ‘choose your settings and party’ option. So it’s good for playing to get used to the controls, and if you can’t sleep in the middle of the night. You can also unlock the Bowser level to play on Party Mode by getting to it on Story Mode, and by beating the boss.

 The Mini-Game mode is just for playing the mini-games you’ve unlocked in the story and party mode. 

 Multi-Player mode allows you to play your mates. But it has no Wi-Fi so you can only play via DS Download, which is a bit of a bummer.

 Puzzle Mode is rather pointless. With just little puzzles and games to keep you occupied if you’ve completed everything, but there isn’t really a lot of need.

 The Gallery shows you all the things you’ve unlocked by playing the game. You unlock items by earning MP (Mario Party) points – another pointless aspect of the game – from Party and Story mode. You can’t do anything with these, so they’re rather ridiculous.

 When actually playing the party, you get lots of enjoyment out of it. Most things about the board play are the same, with the additions of the ‘Friendship Space’ and brand new mini-games. At times, the game can be a little frustrating with the way so many things are repeated, but the excitement of the game more than makes up for it. Ok, so you do have a lot of luck with the dick roll and how well your opponents do. But you have to strategise your route around the board, what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it. Also, don’t forget the skill you’ve got to have in the mini-games; some are luck though.

 To deduce, the story and party modes are great, the use of all controls are also great, but the thing that lets it down it the various pointless aspects of the game, and that needs to be sorted out in order to make an immensely successful Mario Party game.

 87% - J-Monkey