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IGN Review of Family Party: 30 Great Games
Mini-games are the Wii's best friend and worst enemy. On the one hand, mini-games helped make the console the success it is by pulling in a more casual audience with their simple design and pick up and play approach. Unfortunately, most turn out to be subpar efforts that leave the majority of fans disappointed to say the least. It's sad to say, but it's only getting worse as companies realize that they need only invest in some eye-catching box art to make a killing off Nintendo's system.
That's why when we get something with any kind of production value; it seems to stand out, even if it's not really that great. That's the case with Family Party: 30 Great Games from D3 and Tamsoft. It has some problems, but as far as $20 mini-game collections go, you might actually get your money's worth out of this one. If you think about it, it's roughly the price of a candy bar for each of the 30 games. Now just ask yourself, what would you rather have - five minutes of fun with friends, or a delicious Snickers?
Of course, the mini-games in Family Party all revolve around various uses of the Wii remote's motion control and pointing functionality. Most of them have you doing a variety of button presses and motions to compete for the best time or highest score. In one game you shake the remote to run up to a trampoline, press A to jump, and jerk up to grab onto a net, shaking the remote to climb down as fast as possible. In another you hold the remote NES style, alternate between left on the D pad and the 2 button to run, and tilt the remote left and right to block incoming projectiles. The player who gets to the finish line the fastest, wins. There are a lot of games that use this basic premise.
Other games have you balancing on a stack of pillows by tilting the Wii remote, or shooting targets on screen with the IR pointer. In one unique event, you'll hold the remote classic style while your character holds a red and white flag in each hand. You then play a game of Simon says, pressing on the D pad or the 2 button while raising the remote up or down as fast as possible to move the corresponding flags as commands are quickly shouted out. Every once in a while your character will have to turn around, which means you have to flip the remote. It works quite well. Though many of the games use similar mechanics, they are all relatively distinct.
The controls do get a bit complicated at times, which might discourage some players. It's definitely going to take more than one try to get some of the actions down. You can't just hand the controller around, it's going to take some explaining. One major problem is that you're often asked to waggle the controller furiously while going in and out of button presses. This is always tough to get the hang of. Once you learn the controls it's easy to repeat, but some casual players might not have the patience.
There are two main modes of play – single-player Challenge mode, and multiplayer Battle mode. In Challenge mode, you choose from one of several themed areas, each having five mini-games. As you compete and win in these challenges the game keeps track of your bronze, silver, and gold medals. After a certain number of medals are awarded, you'll begin to unlock extra characters and events for each area; eventually unlocking the remaining two themed areas to gain access to all 30 games. Unfortunately it doesn't tell you what you need to do, or how many medals you need to unlock these things, which makes it difficult to stay motivated. Getting the awards is pretty tough, so it's going to take some work to unlock everything. Usually we don't like when party games make you work hard to unlock so many events, and this is no exception, but since you have access to 15 unique games right off the bat, we can be a little more forgiving here.
In battle mode you can choose up to six mini-games to play with up to four friends. Since each player has a different profile (the same profiles you use during single-player), medals are still counted just as in Challenge mode, and go towards unlocking the same extras. Unlike some other mini-game collections, the game developers here did a decent job in making the single-player and multiplayer modes feel like one congruent experience.
That may be true, but like most mini-games, Family Party was really made with multiplayer in mind. In fact, no matter how many people are playing, four opponents will always be on-screen. This is fine when you are playing with a group because no one is ever waiting with nothing to do, but since it usually divides the screen into quarters, it can really limit your view. Some events could have easily been handled with one camera showing all the players, but the screen is still quartered. If you're playing alone or with one other person, the game could have shown only those playing, but instead you have to look at a small fraction of the screen, regardless of the number of players. This also means that you'll have to wait for the computer controlled opponents to finish before you can continue. Sometimes they seem to have quite a bit of trouble finishing events in any sort of reasonable time, which can be frustrating.
This approach also affects the sound in the game. The music and voice acting is decent and plentiful, but when you have the sound of four of the same mini-games going on at once, it turns into a hodgepodge of noise and shouting. Again, this wouldn't be as big an issue if there were actually four players, but when there's only one or two, there's really no need for all that noise.
Overall, the presentation is above average when compared to other mini-game collections. There is quite a bit of voiceover work, and each playable character has a unique voice. The graphics are also better than most budget titles. The textures on the characters are relatively clear, and the game utilizes a subtle glow around the model edges similar to what we saw in Super Mario Galaxy. This simple effect really adds a lot to what would otherwise be a somewhat generic art style. The backgrounds aren't quite as nice, but the environments are large and varied for each stage.
©2009-01-12, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
That's why when we get something with any kind of production value; it seems to stand out, even if it's not really that great. That's the case with Family Party: 30 Great Games from D3 and Tamsoft. It has some problems, but as far as $20 mini-game collections go, you might actually get your money's worth out of this one. If you think about it, it's roughly the price of a candy bar for each of the 30 games. Now just ask yourself, what would you rather have - five minutes of fun with friends, or a delicious Snickers?
Of course, the mini-games in Family Party all revolve around various uses of the Wii remote's motion control and pointing functionality. Most of them have you doing a variety of button presses and motions to compete for the best time or highest score. In one game you shake the remote to run up to a trampoline, press A to jump, and jerk up to grab onto a net, shaking the remote to climb down as fast as possible. In another you hold the remote NES style, alternate between left on the D pad and the 2 button to run, and tilt the remote left and right to block incoming projectiles. The player who gets to the finish line the fastest, wins. There are a lot of games that use this basic premise.
Other games have you balancing on a stack of pillows by tilting the Wii remote, or shooting targets on screen with the IR pointer. In one unique event, you'll hold the remote classic style while your character holds a red and white flag in each hand. You then play a game of Simon says, pressing on the D pad or the 2 button while raising the remote up or down as fast as possible to move the corresponding flags as commands are quickly shouted out. Every once in a while your character will have to turn around, which means you have to flip the remote. It works quite well. Though many of the games use similar mechanics, they are all relatively distinct.
The controls do get a bit complicated at times, which might discourage some players. It's definitely going to take more than one try to get some of the actions down. You can't just hand the controller around, it's going to take some explaining. One major problem is that you're often asked to waggle the controller furiously while going in and out of button presses. This is always tough to get the hang of. Once you learn the controls it's easy to repeat, but some casual players might not have the patience.
There are two main modes of play – single-player Challenge mode, and multiplayer Battle mode. In Challenge mode, you choose from one of several themed areas, each having five mini-games. As you compete and win in these challenges the game keeps track of your bronze, silver, and gold medals. After a certain number of medals are awarded, you'll begin to unlock extra characters and events for each area; eventually unlocking the remaining two themed areas to gain access to all 30 games. Unfortunately it doesn't tell you what you need to do, or how many medals you need to unlock these things, which makes it difficult to stay motivated. Getting the awards is pretty tough, so it's going to take some work to unlock everything. Usually we don't like when party games make you work hard to unlock so many events, and this is no exception, but since you have access to 15 unique games right off the bat, we can be a little more forgiving here.
In battle mode you can choose up to six mini-games to play with up to four friends. Since each player has a different profile (the same profiles you use during single-player), medals are still counted just as in Challenge mode, and go towards unlocking the same extras. Unlike some other mini-game collections, the game developers here did a decent job in making the single-player and multiplayer modes feel like one congruent experience.
That may be true, but like most mini-games, Family Party was really made with multiplayer in mind. In fact, no matter how many people are playing, four opponents will always be on-screen. This is fine when you are playing with a group because no one is ever waiting with nothing to do, but since it usually divides the screen into quarters, it can really limit your view. Some events could have easily been handled with one camera showing all the players, but the screen is still quartered. If you're playing alone or with one other person, the game could have shown only those playing, but instead you have to look at a small fraction of the screen, regardless of the number of players. This also means that you'll have to wait for the computer controlled opponents to finish before you can continue. Sometimes they seem to have quite a bit of trouble finishing events in any sort of reasonable time, which can be frustrating.
This approach also affects the sound in the game. The music and voice acting is decent and plentiful, but when you have the sound of four of the same mini-games going on at once, it turns into a hodgepodge of noise and shouting. Again, this wouldn't be as big an issue if there were actually four players, but when there's only one or two, there's really no need for all that noise.
Overall, the presentation is above average when compared to other mini-game collections. There is quite a bit of voiceover work, and each playable character has a unique voice. The graphics are also better than most budget titles. The textures on the characters are relatively clear, and the game utilizes a subtle glow around the model edges similar to what we saw in Super Mario Galaxy. This simple effect really adds a lot to what would otherwise be a somewhat generic art style. The backgrounds aren't quite as nice, but the environments are large and varied for each stage.
©2009-01-12, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved