| Wii Party | |
|---|---|
Wii Party Logo |
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| Developer(s) | Nd Cube Nintendo SPD Group No.4 |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Director(s) | Shuichiro Nishiya |
| Producer(s) | Miyuki Hirose Atsushi Ikeda Hiroshi Sato |
| Platform(s) | Wii |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Party |
| Rating(s) | |
Wii Party (Wiiパーティ) is a party video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii video game console.[4] The game heavily borrows game play elements from the Mario Party series, another Nintendo franchise. It is also the first game in the Wii series that Shigeru Miyamoto did not produce.[5] The game was released in Japan on July 8, 2010,[1] in North America on October 3, 2010, in Australia on October 7, 2010, and in Europe on October 8, 2010. Wii Party was first revealed by Satoru Iwata in a Financial Results Briefing on May 7, 2010.[6] It has met with mixed to positive reviews from critics and sold 5.77 million copies worldwide as of April 2011.[7]
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Wii Party features 13 different game modes divided amongst three categories: Party Games, House Party Games, and Pair Games. Most of the game modes integrate use of Wii Party's 80 mini-games. The game also offers additional modes that make exclusive use of the mini-games.
Party Games are games in which four players compete against one another. Two of the modes in this category, "Board Game Island" and "Globe Trot", are similar to a traditional board game: a player rolls a die and proceeds the indicated number of steps (Mii characters are used as players' game pieces). At the beginning of each round, a mini-game is played that provides the winning players an advantage on the game board, such as an extra die or money. In "Board Game Island", the first player to reach the goal wins; and in "Globe Trot", which is most similar to gameplay in Mario Party, players travel around the Earth to specific destinations, such as India, Egypt, or the United States, to buy souvenir photographs of the relevant landmarks, shopping items, or cuisine – the player with the most photographs and money by the end of the game wins.
House Party Games are activities that focus on the players' physical interactions with the Wii Remote, requiring two players or more.[8]
Pair Games are designed for play with only two players, either cooperatively or competitively.
After the development of Mario Party 8, several of Hudson Soft's key designers left to work for Nintendo subsidiary Nd Cube.[9] Wii Party was first revealed to the public by Satoru Iwata during a presentation to investors at E3 2010 on May 7, 2010.[10] In an Interview on Iwata Asks, Nd Cube said that "One of the attractions of Mario Party is that you can play with your favorite character", but they "thought that using Mii characters would strengthen the impression that you yourself are playing together with your friends." Ikeda also hoped "people will play Wii Party for years to come as the new standard in party game software."[11]
| Reception | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Aggregator | Score |
| GameRankings | 71.78%[12] |
| Metacritic | 68[13] |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| 1UP.com | C-[14] |
| Eurogamer | 7/10[15] |
| Game Informer | 4.5/10[16] |
| GameSpot | 8/10[17] |
| GameTrailers | 7.9/10[18] |
| IGN | 7/10[19] |
Wii Party received mixed to positive reception, with an average Metacritic score of 68.[13] GameSpot awarded Wii Party a score of 8 out of 10, praising the wide variety of games and modes. GameSpot also added that the game's multiplayer "is a blast," and believes that Wii Party is "faster and better" than Mario Party.[17] Nintendo World Report also gave the game an 8/10, citing that "A common complaint about Mario Party is that it has too many things that slow gameplay down to a near halt, such as multiple traps on one game board and waiting for the player to finish his or her turn. Wii Party avoids this by speeding up gameplay".[20] IGN gave the game a 7/10, criticizing the graphics saying, despite being bright and colorful, that they are "not exactly pretty", but praised Nintendo for doing a good job to allow players to follow instructions to get through objectives.[19] GameTrailers gave the game a 7.9, saying "Aside from a few dud modes and some minor control issues, there isn't a whole lot to fault."[18]
Phil Kollar of Game Informer stated in a negative review that "Wii Party's 80-plus minigames share the same uneven quality I've come to expect from Mario Party, which makes sense given that many of them are iterations of games from that series. The metagames are even worse. Whereas Mario Party gave players multiple boards to play through, Wii Party features multiple game types, each less exciting than the last."[16]
In its first week of release in Japan, Wii Party sold 230,000 units and was the country's best-selling game that week.[21] As of October 5, 2010, Wii Party has sold 1,350,791 units in Japan.[22] The game has sold 6.03 million copies worldwide as of July 2011.[7]
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