With its “WarioWare” and “Mario Party” franchises, Nintendo was in the minigame-collection business way before it was cool. Now that it’s become uncool, with countless Wii minigame anthologies clogging the shelves of your local electronics department, leave it to the genre’s inventor to show the pretenders and profiteers how the professionals do it.
“Wii Party” nails the two things any minigame anthology must do: make the games fun, and make the structure they fit into meaningful. “Wii Party” resurrects “Mario Party’s” board game model with a mode in which you roll dice and compete in minigames to ascend a volcanic island. But that’s just the beginning. Coupled with Board Game Island is, among other modes, a “Wheel of Fortune” ripoff and an unreasonably fun version of bingo that uses faces from your Mii menagerie to fill your bingo card, so you’re desperate for the ball with Marianne’s face to come through the hopper (or for a Minigame ball so you can win the battle and fill any square you want).
