Crazywife's Full Review: Mario Party 2 for Nintendo 64
As a departure from traditional board games, our family has adopted Mario Party 2 as its favorite group game. It is difficult for larger families, to find a game that everyone enjoys - mostly due to a variety of age ranges, reading skills, and attention spans. If you are looking for something fun to do, that takes more than 30 minutes, check out Mario Party 2!
Mario Party 2, using Nintendo 64's platform, is a more involved and polished version of its predecessor. Up to four players can participate, each choosing their favorite character from amoung those we've become so familiar with - Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Peach, Yoshi and Wario. Within the game itself are a variety of levels of play, each presenting its own unique "gameboard." You are able to select how many rounds you'd like to play - up to 50! The object of the game is basically to collect the most stars!
For each round of play, you direct your character around the board by jumping your person into a revolving block above your head which gives you the amount of spaces you can move. Certain spots you land on give you coins or take them away - and coins are very important because they help you win the game. For example: If you have 50 when you meet a ghost, he will steal a star for you from any player you chooses. You must choose your path carefully - there are stores you can purchase game aids like additional spin mushrooms, skeleton keys, genie lamps, etc. On some boards there are trains to ride, or spaceships to carry you to distant spots on the board - all this takes money of course. At the end of each round, after everyone has had their turn, the players compete in a game together - with the winner, or winners, getting an additional coin reward.
The fun about Mario Party 2 is that the game, and the player who is in first place, can change numerous times during play. Competition can get quite fierce, but we've had lots of laughs when we've played the multi-player games. Some of these are hilarious! We have several favorites: Crazy Cutters, Rake-em in, and Meca-Marathon. In Crazy Cutters, each character must be directed to cut around the same shaped object. Your character is on this thing that looks like a jack-hammer, and it's not easy to steer them smoothly. Whoever cuts the most accurately, wins. You should see how bad mine are! In Rake-em In, you must direct this crane arm over a revolving platform and try to rake mushrooms into your box. Be careful not to get the purple one, it deducts points! In Meca-Marathon, your character has to wind up this flying creature - you do this by pressing both A and B button as fast as you can. The creature flying the farthest makes you a winner! We get to laughing playing this one, as all you hear are our buttons clicking. There are many many multi player games - some you compete individually for the money - and some you compete as teams!
The end of the game is always a surprise. Even if you have the most stars, you can still loose. There are star bonuses given at the end for the most coins held, the most multi-player games won, and the Happening Star - which is the most "?" blocks landed on. If there is a tie, the person with the most coins left wins. There is a really cute ending, where Bowser comes and the winning character (which up to this point has not been named) saves the day!
Two thumbs up to this game for making our game night more fun - and bringing us closer together as a family. In fact, we don't always wait for game night to play!
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.