Despite its claim of greatness, Family Party's mini-games range from abysmal to bland. Many are physically abusive and/or feel redundant; others have moderately interesting ideas but leave much to be desired. This game only offers frustration to those that would try it, and is not worth anyone's time or money.
Nintendo continues to add to its already robust collection of both new and classic downloadable titles this week with the release of SNES title: Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen on the virtual console, as well as Family and Friends Party, an interactive board game for up to 8 players available via WiiWare.
Last week saw the debut of three Commodore 64 titles as well as the long-awaited co-op FPS Onslaught, and while this week lacks the excitement of the former, Nintendo has done an incredible job releasing titles from all sectors so that every gamer will have something to spend their precious Wii Points on.
GA writes: "I am guessing that most people will have the same gut reaction to Family Party: 30 Great Games as when I first picked it up; serious doubt about the word "great" being in the title. After playing the game many times, I feel confident in saying that the title is promoting false advertisement. A more accurate title would be 30 Mini Games.
There are six "great games" in each of five areas; Athletics, Castle, Muscle, Shooting and Variety. Initially, there are three areas unlocked; each with five games. The remainder are unlocked by getting first place overall in the unlocked areas. At least I think that is how they are unlocked. This worked for me for two of the three areas. However, there were two times when I placed first in the Athletics area that I was awarded with the word Failed. I have never heard of getting first place and failing. After brooding about my first place failures, I realized something; failure is the mark of this game. In almost every way this game fails. From the manual that has no useful information to the terrible AI; this game has failure written everywhere."
WP writes: "By now, most of us Wii owners have come to accept that there are going to be a certain amount of uninspired mini-game compilations that will be released on the system. Whether it's the ease of development, the unique control scheme, or the simple fact that the system is insanely popular, it appears that developers are willing to come out of the woodwork and produce games that they hope can cash in on some Wii Play- or WarioWare-style numbers. I wonder how many of these companies realize that Wii Play was popular more due to the extra Wiimote pack-in than the actual game content, but that doesn't seem to diminish the number of party titles that get released every year."
