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Mario Party 8 Game Review–Take Their Hint

Seeing as how me and the Big N parted company back around the Gamecube era (as in, I had one, but after a couple weeks I took it to the local Gamestop and traded the sucker in on an Xbox because, as far as I could tell, Nintendo would not put out a game for anyone over the age of twelve), I never really got the opportunity to take a stab at the Mario Party line.  Thusly, my first exposure to the Mario Party series was this one right here, Mario Party 8 for the Wii.

Yes, it’s true–the game that amounts to little more than a board game wherein mini-games are played to decide who wins and who loses has reached its eighth iteration with this one.  And, plotwise, that’s really all you do.  You’ll play, generally in a four player environment with computer players to make up the slack as needed when humans aren’t on hand (if it’s just you, you’ll play against a trio of computer players), a series of board games.  You’ll punch a dice cube above your head when it’s your turn, then you’ll proceed the correct number of spaces along the board, at which point you’ll receive rewards or punishments based on the rules and then proceed onto the next mini-game, and you’ll repeat for a certain number of turns.

Yes, it’s a little bit monotonous. No one ever said this sucker was going to be the kind of thing you’d ever mistake for high art.  Or low art.  Or any other kind of art, come to think of it.  There’s nothing really resembling a storyline here–in fact, the only thing that keeps Mario Party 8 from being nothing more than a second-rate collection of mini-games is that it’s actually a FIRST-rate collection of mini-games.  I admit that, when I played this, I had more than my share of fun, for about the first half-hour or so.  After that first half-hour, however, that’s when the boredom settled in.  It only started grating, though, and every time a new mini-game came up, the boredom lessened significantly.

Now, there’s a lot of appeal in a game like this.  Indeed, with three or more friends around this sucker’s probably incredible fun.  Even with one extra buddy in tow, Mario Party 8 could easily be a great time.  But if you’re playing this one by yourself, the limits of the fun are sorely strained.  In fact, the appeal in playing this one in single player mode is fairly well limited to the number of new mini-game experiences you can have.  Once you’ve played through all the different games, and all the different boards, and won all the various prizes you’re able to win, you might as well just unplug your Wiimote and take that sucker back to the store, because you’ve just done everything you could ever possibly do with this game.

Mario Party 8 isn’t the kind of game you can give a simple yea-or-nay review to.  It has a series of very specific applications that, if your intended use doesn’t fit them, will limit your enjoyment of this game by limiting its usefulness.  If you need a game to play with friends or as a short-term rental, then yes, absolutely, Mario Party 8 will do the job nicely.  The game is called Mario Party for a reason–take the hint.

Help Wanted Game Review–The World Will Be Saved By Cheap Child Labor

The Wii, it becomes more and more clear to me, is a thoroughly Japanese system.  Where the PS3 and the Xbox 360 might play games that have big involved storylines or lots of explosions and sociopathic destruction in general, much like American cinema in general, the Wii has the games that are the most out of left field.  I say this having watched several dozen Japanese movies and, in many cases, being positively baffled by what I watch.  Don’t believe me?  Go get a copy of Crazy Lips some time and see if that end sequence makes your eyes pop too.  But I digress.  Once again, I’ve found a Wii game that steadfastly refuses all known conventions in favor it its own sheer bizarrity.  That game, specifically, is Help Wanted.

In Help Wanted, you play a young man, or a young lady, whichever, who has a serious problem.  Their grandfather has discovered that an enormous meteor is heading straight for Earth and will destroy all life as we know it unless it can, somehow, be stopped.  But rather than call the police or the government or something, the old codger instead looks to his grandkids to—get this—take a series of odd jobs so that they can save enough money to buy various things from a series of home shopping networks that they can use to attack the meteor.

No, seriously.

That’s the entire plot of Help Wanted—the world can only be saved by cheap child labor.  Not that these kids’ labor is exactly cheap; many of the jobs you take on can net you as much as a hundred bucks a day or more.  And while you’re earning that money, you can spend it with a series of home shopping channels for new uniforms (allowing you to unlock new jobs), trophies of your previous jobs (which increase the amount of “shopping points” you get), support items (which make your jobs easier) and stuff to affect the meteor, either delaying its arrival or causing damage to it which will eventually make it break up and no longer pose a threat to Earth.

You’ll rapidly find, as you play Help Wanted, that there are some jobs you enjoy more than others, and some jobs you’re better at than others, and some jobs you just plain old can’t stand, just like in real life.  I, for example, found I was a positively crackerjack fisherman and action hero.  You may well discover a gift for babysitting and teaching, two things that some say aren’t that far removed.  But the key thing here is, there’s a lot to do and a lot of different THINGS to do.  Nothing really has a chance to get old or stale because you can switch to something completely different almost at will.

Sure, the graphics are a little low-end, as is the standard with the Wii, where its games are ported to the Playstation TWO rather than the three.  Sure, the characters couldn’t be much more chibi and cutesy.  But there’s a lot of humor here, and some of the cut scenes are a riot.  Consider the dog that runs away because he’s tired of playing the villain in the younger siblings’ games.  Upon his return, he’s given a special treat—a makeover and upgrade to hero.  This is not where the strangeness ends, but rather, is merely the beginning.

There’s a lot to like about this game—its constant variety and a soupcon of comedy besides—but I’ll caution you that it really is just another collection of mini games.  But this seems to be working out fairly well for the Wii.  And you should be fairly entertained by the whole thing too.