"Mario Party 8" is the first of the two "Mario Party" games to be released on Nintendo Wii. Released in 2007. It is also one of the first two Wii games I've got, together with "Mario Kart Wii".
This game has the popular Mario characters appearing in Star Carnival, a carnival hosted by a weird-looking character named MC Ballyhoo and his hat Tip Top. There are a total of 14 playable characters in the game, with Blooper and Hammer Bro being unlockable.
One of the main attractions in the game is a single-player mode called Star Battle Arena, where the player has to defeat his/her opponents in the style of Duel Battles in Party Tent, in order to become a superstar and receive an one year supply of candies. Afterward, the player has to defeat Blooper (and Hammer Bro. in another round with Blooper) in the unlockable board Bowser's Warped Orbit, and then face Bowser in a minigame called Superstar Showdown.
Other attractions include: Party Tent, where up to four players can compete with each other in any of the selectable boards just for fun, hence being a Mario Party game; Minigame Tent, where up to four players can compete with each other in any minigames in different modes like Free Play Arcade and Crown Showdown; Fun Bazaar, where the player can buy stuff like carnival figures, music and games, look at records and listen to character voices, and more; Extras Zone, where the player can play some other games normally not playable in any other party modes.
While playing minigames, you might eventually have to hold your Wii control in different ways, or even shake on it, depending on which minigames it is and how the instructions tell you what to do whenever a minigame is to be played.
This game is a kinda funny Mario Party game. The Party Tent is kinda funny since you can have everybody to compete against each other, have a tag battle with two against two characters, or have a duel with involve one against one character. The Minigame Tent is funny too.
This is also the fourth one in the Mario Party series I've played, hence the fact I don't have Gamecube which have MP 4-7. Because of this, this is the second Mario game where I even got to play as Princess Daisy, the first one was "Mario Party 3" for Nintendo 64.
Kinda funny game, this can be sometimes a little bit boring if you play this for many hours. Even "Mario Party 9" is much more challenging than this. My overall rating is therefore 7/10.
