Mario Party 8

The minigame masters at Hudson have long since proven they know how to produce gameplay that's bite-size and easy to digest. Mario Party, the video game franchise that eats like a board game, has now arrived on the Nintendo Wii for the first time with Mario Party 8, and it brims with plenty of pick-up-and-play action. The move to the Wii could've been a great time to revamp the series, and while many of the minigames make sound use of the Wii's unique controls, it's ultimately just more of the same Mario Party.

This year, Mario Party goes to the Star Carnival, which is run by the symbiotic duo of MC Ballyhoo and his talking top hat, Big Top. The carnival theme doesn't really penetrate past the menus, though, and once you're in a game, it's pretty much the same old Mario Party that Hudson's been churning out for the past eight years now. The primary mode still plays like a board game, with four players smacking the dice block to move across spaces, collecting as many coins and stars as they can before they finish a set number of turns, and of course, playing minigames at the end of each round.