Mario Party 5 review (GameCube)

You can play the regular party mode by yourself, but the pacing can be a bit tedious. To make the single-player action in Mario Party 5 more engaging, Hudson has included a new story mode, where you face off against three of Bowser's Koopa Kids. At the beginning of each level, the Koopa Kids are scattered across the board, and it's up to you to hunt them down and eventually steal all their coins. The story mode takes several steps to ensure that you're either playing a minigame or on your way to playing a minigame. For instance, the game will sometimes have all the Koopa Kids take their turns at once, and, at one point, you'll even be introduced to a vulture named Klepto, who will regularly grab a Koopa Kid and drop him on your space, thus instantly initiating a duel. It's a nice aside, but Mario Party 5 is still at its best when you have a full group of four players to enjoy it with. If you're not the kind to enjoy social gaming, this game is probably not for you, as you might have guessed from the title.

The Mario Party franchise has been going for five years straight, and though it received a bit of a face-lift last year when it shifted from the N64 to the GameCube, the presentation is still starting to seem a bit antiquated. The character models haven't been updated, and the boards are looking a little bland, with some inconsistent texture quality. The minigames, while not terribly visually enticing, tend to do their jobs well enough, without slowdown or glaring visual faults. The voice work for the characters, while generally fitting the cheery tone of the game, is largely recycled from Mario Party 4. The music is limited to a handful of almost painfully cheery tunes that are basically riffs from a few classic Mario Bros. themes. Interestingly, they exude a quality of sound that's about on par with something synthesized by the N64 sound chip. In all, there's nothing particularly hideous about the way Mario Party 5 looks or sounds, but there's nothing particularly striking either, and the package has a cookie-cutter feel to it, as though it just rolled off the Mario Party assembly line.

The beauty of the Mario Party games has always been their accessibility, and the latest installment maintains that. Though the new single-player story mode and bonus games add a little more longevity to the game, the fundamental experience is still largely the same as that offered in previous Mario Party games. If you bought Mario Party 4 last year, Mario Party 5 is hard to recommend. But if you've stayed away from the Mario Party franchise thus far, and you're looking for a casual multiplayer experience, Mario Party 5 may very well be the ticket.