Nov 19, 2007

Having had last Christmas ruined by a soundtrack of manic rabbid wails emitting from the family Wii, we were dreading the sequel. And by the minigame-anthology laws laid d🍒own by Mario Party, this should have been wo🎉rse than the first. Only, by some small Christmas miracle, it’s not.

Gone is the Neanderthal focus on aimless controller peddling, replaced with a whole host of game ideas. Just five minutes of play can see gesture mimicking to ride a mechanical bull, memory games to carry out a Singing in the Rain song and dance numbers or carefully timed waggling to misbehave behind the boss’🦋s back.

And where the previous game made the grievous mistake of forcing you to take turns in the multiplayer mode - spelling boredom for three players at any one time - the games included here champion simultaneous play. Whether ramming into your waiter rivals to spill their sandwiches all over the floor or tackling one another on the muddiest football field imaginable, the focus on vindictive rival💖ry makes this one of the better Wii multiplayer games.