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Pocket-sized party
‘Mario Party DS’ busts out the pint-sized party hats
By Sean Quast
It’s strange to think that in its 10th incarnation the series finally feels right at home on the DS. Hudson Software has really saved the series from becoming as played out as 3DO’s Army Men series that appeared during the same point in gaming history.
The party has been missing from recent Mario Party games. The first one started out so well: you and your friends get together play some mini games and complain about how the computer is always cheating.
Now they just seem tedious and sleep inducing.
There have been nothing more than the same old repetitive mini games with different looks. The one-player modes have been frustrating or just plain boring. Even the Wii version lost players’ interest pretty quickly after players got bored with jerking off their Wii controllers for every game.
Because of these complaints, I don’t know why, but I actually had high hopes for the Nintendo DS version. Unexpectedly, the game delivered.
It’s strange to think that in its 10th incarnation the series finally feels right at home on the DS. Hudson Software has really saved the series from becoming as played out as 3DO’s Army Men series that appeared during the same point in gaming history.
Instead of just porting an old version of the game to the DS, Hudson has retooled the game to fit all the fun of past efforts into the palm of a player’s hand. The game utilizes every unique part of the DS at some point throughout; the duel screens, the stylus and the mic are all in there and they all serve their purpose.
The mini games aren’t the same old ones players have been bored with for eight years now, and not once does one have to play “Shy Guys Say.” Don’t get me wrong “Shy Guy Says” is a great game, but it’s nice to see it get a rest, and we get a whole new stock pile of mini games in mean time.
The reason all the mini games are is because the single player story mode actually has a real story to go with it. Mario and crew have all been shrunk down to “Honey,-I-Shrunk-the-Kids” proportions and they have to work their way back to his castle to return to normal size. All mini games deal with their struggles dealing with being ant-sized.
This version’s new games really utilize the different ways to use the DS. Mini games like “Call of the Goomba” and “Rail Riders” showcase the many ways players can use the stylus. Even the button mashing games seem more fun since the DS works with the old 8-bit coin-and-controller combo trick, where you scrape a nickel over buttons to get more leverage for faster presses. The mic even gets used, but we’ll talk more about that later.
One of the other great features is that the wireless multi-player requires only one copy of the game and runs smoothly. The loading time is a little long for games that last only a few seconds, but not needing four games cards is worth the few extra seconds of waiting.
One of the only serious lacking points of the game is that the boards are just too small. There are also only five of them, which would be fine if it weren’t for the size issue. Players lap around the board so many times it gets almost dizzying. With a triple dice item, one can sometimes easily swoop around the board and get two stars in one turn.
The real sad part is, a player doesn’t even need the triple dice; all too often the star gets placed a mere few spaces away from its former spot, making it too easy for a player with a decent roll to get two or even three stars in a single turn.
There is also what appears to be some bias in which games are chosen during party mode. The game’s computer seems to favor certain games, but this has been a standard problem that plagues all Mario Party games.
The algorithm used to select the “randomness” needs to be retooled, or adjusted so one isn’t just stuck playing the boring games, because they seem to come up more often then the fun ones.
The next flaw of the game really isn’t a flaw, but more of a health risk. There are two games in which players blow fast and furiously at the game’s microphone. These games are incredibly fun, but they always leave players light-headed and dizzy, because one basically hyperventilates to win.
“Mario Party DS” is one of those games that anyone with a DS should own, because it simple and quick to play and good for any situation. Whether it gets brought out while sitting around the house, or while having a few glasses at the bar, the players involved will have fun and recapture the hate they have for the inexplicable skills that computer-controlled players develop during their last turn.
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