Skill Ball: Essentially ’skee ball’ under a more lawyer-friendly name, you roll balls up a slope and into various holes to score points. Unfortunately, the controls are very dodgy in this and it’s hard to get anything going where you want it to.

Puck Bowling: Another arcade ticket game, you slide a puck along a wooden surface into props of bowling pins. This actually works fine, though it’s too easy since the game has no variation to it; I bowled a 209 on my first play through and only did better on subsequent tries.

Whack-a-Troll: Outright insulting in how mindless it is; it’s like a whack-a-mole game (duh), but the targets are all on the same line and move via a horizontal conveyor belt. If a troll pops its head up, swing the Wiimote. If it doesn’t, stay your hand; swinging at non-targets causes you to be unable to swing for a few seconds and you will miss targets this way. Unfortunately, this game is so simple that I’m amazed it’s on the disc.

Ping Cup: Involves bouncing ping-pong balls into small cups on a table. Extremely easy game, you just lightly flick the Wiimote to bounce the ball onto the table and into a cup; I missed only one throw on my first time playing.

Beanbag Toss: You throw beanbags at a small ramp with a hole built into it. Your main goal is to get beanbags into that hole, but coming close is okay too. Unfortunately, it has the same erratic controls ’Skill Ball’ does, making it frustrating to play.

Bumper Pool: A billiards variant, but played on an octagonal table with rubber bumpers laid around it so that you have to shoot in circles until you can line up a shot on your assigned pocket. This is actually pretty well done!

Lawn Darts: You toss large darts into the grass, which is divided into circular areas. Unfortunately, it has the same bad controls that Beanbag Toss and Skill Ball do and is hard to play.

Horseshoes: Controlled in almost the exact same way Lawn Darts is, the throwing controls are pretty suspect here as well, so getting the horseshoes to wrap around or near the target post is something of a guessing game. I’m not impressed.

Croquet: Basically a game of whacking a ball between posts in a lawn, it’s okay aside from the lack of sensitivity in the controls; light taps are hard to do.

Racquetball: Indoor tennis where you have to bounce the ball off a wall. Controls lack precision, and regular swings often don’t have enough power to hit the required areas of the playing field; I had to do ’murder the ball’ style swings in many cases. Players occasionally teleport, too; not a good implementation of the sport.

Bocce Ball: A lawn game where you toss a ’jack’ ball onto the field, then try to land other balls near it. This is actually okay, but likely won’t hold its charm for too long.

Mini Golf: Exactly what it says; golf played using only a putter on a miniature course. Plays just fine and has excellent controls. I think I’d be willing to pay a few dollars for just this game... but that is sadly not an option.

Character Creator: In lieu of Miis, Game Party 3 lets you make similar characters in a different art style. Tickets won from playing other games with a created character can be used for various unlockables, but considering most of the games on this disc are bad, why bother?


Conclusion: I would like to remind the folks at WB that this is 2009. You are no longer allowed to ship a collection of badly made tech demos and call it a game. The difference between this and Nintendo’s similar offerings is that Nintendo either makes halfway decent games when they do this, or they offer something very compelling: Wii Play was $50, but you were getting a Wiimote at-cost, so the only ’real’ expense was five bucks for the games and that was fair enough. Likewise, Wii Sports Resort came with a Motion Plus, and the remaining $30 or so bought a set of decent mini-games. Thirty bucks for a pack of simple games where only a handful of them work right is no bargain, and I’d advise everyone to stay well away from this.