Game Party 3 Review (Wii)

The folks at Warner Bros. should be ashamed. The Wii has been on the market for a few years now, yet they decided to crank out this really bad ’casual mini-game’ collection in hopes of cashing in on the fad Nintendo started with Wii Sports. This collection of nineteen mini-games played using only the Wiimote retails for about thirty dollars, but I think five bucks would be closer to a fair price. Each game is divided into a theme, such as arcade ticket games, outdoor leisure, lounge, bar games, and so on... but most of them share one thing in common: They’re poorly made and have inaccurate controls. So what do you get from Game Party 3? Let’s take a look at these various motion-control games.

Darts and Cricket: Exactly what they sound like; games played by throwing darts at a board with various sections on it. This would be fine, except the throwing controls are pretty hard to get any real precision to and my throws were all over the place even when I did near-identical motions.

Shuffleboard: A wise man once said there is no place for the weak and elderly in this game where you slide pucks along a surface with numbered target areas on it. The version presented in Game Party 3 is also unsuited for the able-bodied however, as the controls are wildly inaccurate.

Billiards: Pool, snooker, billiards, whatever name you know it by, it offers a few different modes on here and the actually work fine. It’s certainly a better offering than Wii Play’s version, though the graphics are lazy; a near total lack of shading and lighting on the balls makes it look like they’re two-dimensional. Still, it plays okay.

Hoops: Styled after the arcade basketball games where you’d try to sink as many shots as possible within a time limit, but the controls are a little hard to get a feel for. Worse, you can shoot as fast as you can flail the Wiimote, resulting in completely unrealistic shooting speeds where you lob more balls than any real machine would ever have available at any one time.

QB Challenge: Involves throwing a football (American style) at receivers moving on horizontal tracks; you lose points if interceptors grab them instead. It works okay, but loses its charm quickly.

Trivia: A basic trivia game where you’re asked questions on a variety of topics and have to point at the correct answer. This is actually okay, and it seems to have a decent variety of questions.

Root Beer Tapper: A Wiimote-based remake of the arcade classic, you hold A to fill mugs, the d-pad to move between lanes, and flick the Wiimote forward to slide the mug to oncoming customers. You lose points for any mug thrown to an empty lane, and for any customers that manage to get to your end of the tables. It’s okay, but very simple.

Next: More game overviews and conclusion.