Our first GameFly rental was a bust, Game Party is not worth renting let alone purchase. The graphics are patchy; the static backgrounds are well drawn, this only makes graphics for the players and crowds even worse. Unlike the cartoonish Miis, these characters look and move more like inflatable dolls. This is made all the creepier by the method used to make them emote. Instead of the characters expressions changing; to express joy or frustration by smiling or frowning, the image of the mouth and eyes increases or shrinks. It looks like some one is squeezing and releasing them, making other body parts expand and contract like a stress ball.
Not only the players but the crowd characters standing around, in fact the characters standing around are one of the creepier aspects. Unlike Mii spectators in tennis & boxing or the ones bowling in other lanes; these characters all act as if they have money ridding on the game. Cheering when you succeed and looking like they want to shank you when you miss.
Game play also suffers along with the graphics; the darts and beer pong games require you to select an aiming point on the game field. As far as I could tell these aiming points had little to due with the flight of the darts or bounce location of the ball. The skeeball game plays nothing like Wii Sports Bowling, which is annoying. The air hockey game stuck on me both times I tried to play it. The software and hardware were fine but my player got stuck in the bottom of the screen, annoying as hell. Also the view for a single player game the standard view is overhead, I gave up before discovering if there are any other view points. The Trivia game was random and hard to understand, the only game that was the least bit enjoyable were shuffleboard and basketball, neither of which could redeem the rest of the game.
We would give this game one wiimote.
Labels: game review, gaming, Wii
