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).
As for the minigames themselves: From jumping hurdles to chopping onions, 58 of the 60-odd minigames are fun — an amazing record.
Nintendo could have stopped here, and would have made a decent companion to “Wii Play” that would have sold millions. The next steps it takes move the game from the TV screen into your living room, and make “Wii Party” something truly special.
Take Hide ‘n’ Hunt, which tasks one player to hide your Wii Remotes around the room and then plays animal sounds from the Wiimotes’ speakers every 10 seconds to help the seekers. Modes like this make the fun accessible to people who don’t usually play video games, and none does this better than Buddy Quiz, a “Newlywed Game” ripoff that has players guess the answers another player will give to a series of questions.
Whether you’re testing romantic compatibility or just how well you know someone, this mode is a surefire crowd pleaser and conversation starter, just like the game that hosts it.
