Wii Party
Encyclopedia
is a party video game developed and published by Nintendo
for the Wii
video game console
. 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. The game was released in Japan
on July 8, 2010, 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. It has met with mixed to positive reviews from critics and sold 5.77 million copies worldwide as of April 2011.
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 landmark
s, 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.
Pair Games are designed for play with only two players, either cooperatively or competitively.
, several of Hudson Soft
's key designers left to work for Nintendo subsidiary Nd Cube. Wii Party was first revealed to the public by Satoru Iwata during a presentation to investors at E3 2010 on May 7, 2010. 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."
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
. 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". 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. 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."
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."
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
for the Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
. The game heavily borrows game play elements from the Mario Party
Mario Party
is a party video game for the Nintendo 64 game console, developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on December 14, 1998, in North America on February 8, 1999, and in Europe on March 9, 1999...
series, another Nintendo franchise. It is also the first game in the Wii series that Shigeru Miyamoto
Shigeru Miyamoto
is a Japanese video game designer and producer. Miyamoto was born and raised in Kyoto Prefecture; the natural surroundings of Kyoto inspired much of Miyamoto's later work....
did not produce. The game was released in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
on July 8, 2010, in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
on October 3, 2010, in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
on October 7, 2010, and in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
on October 8, 2010. Wii Party was first revealed by Satoru Iwata
Satoru Iwata
is the fourth president of Nintendo, succeeding the long-standing previous president of the company, Hiroshi Yamauchi in 2002. He was responsible in great part for defining Nintendo's strategy both before and during the release of its Nintendo GameCube video game console in 2001, a vision which...
in a Financial Results Briefing on May 7, 2010. It has met with mixed to positive reviews from critics and sold 5.77 million copies worldwide as of April 2011.
Gameplay
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 Partys 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
Board game
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...
: a player rolls a die
Dice
A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...
and proceeds the indicated number of steps (Mii
Mii
A is a digital avatar used in Nintendo's Wii and Nintendo 3DS gaming consoles. They allow users to capture a likeness of themselves and others. After creating one using the Wii's Mii Channel or the Nintendo 3DS's Mii Maker, they can be used as playable characters in various titles for the...
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
Mario Party
is a party video game for the Nintendo 64 game console, developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on December 14, 1998, in North America on February 8, 1999, and in Europe on March 9, 1999...
, players travel around the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
to specific destinations, such as India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, or the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, to buy souvenir photographs of the relevant landmark
Landmark
This is a list of landmarks around the world.Landmarks may be split into two categories - natural phenomena and man-made features, like buildings, bridges, statues, public squares and so forth...
s, shopping items, or cuisine
Cuisine
Cuisine is a characteristic style of cooking practices and traditions, often associated with a specific culture. Cuisines are often named after the geographic areas or regions that they originate from...
– 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
Wii Remote
The , also known as the Wiimote, is the primary controller for Nintendo's Wii console. A main feature of the Wii Remote is its motion sensing capability, which allows the user to interact with and manipulate items on screen via gesture recognition and pointing through the use of accelerometer and...
, requiring two players or more.
Pair Games are designed for play with only two players, either cooperatively or competitively.
Development
After the development of Mario Party 8Mario Party 8
is a party video game, the eighth installment in the Mario Party series, and is the first title in the series to be released for the Nintendo Wii. It is also the first Mario Party title to have the ability to use Mii characters. It was released in North America on May 29, 2007, in Europe on June...
, several of Hudson Soft
Hudson Soft
, formally known as , is a majority-owned subsidiary of Konami Corporation is a Japanese electronic entertainment publisher headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo Midtown, Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, with an additional office in the Hudson Building in Sapporo. It was founded on May 18, 1973...
's key designers left to work for Nintendo subsidiary Nd Cube. Wii Party was first revealed to the public by Satoru Iwata during a presentation to investors at E3 2010 on May 7, 2010. 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."
Reception
Wii Party received mixed to positive reception, with an average Metacritic score of 68. GameSpotGameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
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
Mario Party
is a party video game for the Nintendo 64 game console, developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on December 14, 1998, in North America on February 8, 1999, and in Europe on March 9, 1999...
. Nintendo World Report
Nintendo World Report
Nintendo World Report is a Nintendo-specific video game website that covers Nintendo's current consoles, the Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, and Wii.-History:...
also gave the game an 8/10, citing that "A common complaint about Mario Party
Mario Party
is a party video game for the Nintendo 64 game console, developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on December 14, 1998, in North America on February 8, 1999, and in Europe on March 9, 1999...
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". IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
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. GameTrailers
GameTrailers
GameTrailers is a media website that specializes in video game related content. It provides free access to original programming , game trailers and recorded game play. Along with standard definition , many of the video clips are offered in a higher resolution .Users can upload videos, create...
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."
Phil Kollar of Game Informer
Game Informer
Game Informer is an American-based monthly magazine featuring articles, news, strategy, and reviews of popular video games and associated consoles. It was formed in August 1991, when FuncoLand started publishing a six-page magazine, free in all its retail locations...
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."
Sales
In its first week of release in Japan, Wii Party sold 230,000 units and was the country's best-selling game that week. As of October 5, 2010, Wii Party has sold 1,350,791 units in Japan. The game has sold 5.77 million copies worldwide as of April 2011.External links
- Official Wii Party website (United States)
- Official Wii Party website