bit-tech Shopping: Nintendo Mario Party DS (DS)

Rating: 8

Time with product: 10

Strengths: - many different games- fun with 2 or more- pretty easy

Weaknesses: - not as fun alone- almost TOO easy

Summary: Mario Party DS is a great game with lots of different things to do! Id suggest this for a great multiplayer game! Although it is not as great single player...

Rating: 10

Time with product: 3

Strengths: Great mini-games, amazing multiplayer experience, ENDLESS FUN!!

Weaknesses: No online play... maybe in the future? Other than that, great game!

Summary: This game is a must-have for anyone who owns a DS, especially if you are a fan of the Mario Party series. Another great aspect of the game is you can do a DS download play with 3 friends and all play off one cartridge. If you don't have friends to play with, there's always story mode or you can just practice & get better at the mini-games.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 23 Days

Strengths: Full single-card multiplayer and lots of great minigames.

Weaknesses: No online play; few boards & characters

Summary: Mario Party DS doesn't stray too far from the classic Mario Party formula. The game is built around Party mode, the traditional multiplayer board game on a screen that can be played by up to four players or as few as one, although it's probably Mario Party DS least enjoyable single-player experience. It's Mario Party DS multiplayer that really makes the game a worthy investment. Thanks to the magic of wireless DS single card download play, one single game card is all you need to provide full multiplayer functionality. Load times are incredibly short, no more than two or three seconds long on average, and there's no lag whatsoever during mini-game play. Unfortunately, it lacks true online play, but the local multiplayer is so solid that it almost seems greedy to ask for more, and the game is well worth its retail price even without Wi-Fi functionality.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 40 Days

Strengths: Lots and Lots of Mini Games - Fun for Adults and Kids

Weaknesses: None so far

Summary: Mario Party for Nintendo DS is just as fun as Mario Party for Wii! This is one of the best Nintendo games made! My 5 year old is always choosing this game along with his 40 year old father. We have played it for 30+ days and haven't come close to getting to all of the 70 minigames. This is a must have for all DS (and Wii) owners!

Rating: 10

Time with product: 1 Week

Strengths: Lots of content to for multi-player play with 1 copy of the game. Lots of fun mini games. Easy and quick to learn if you've never played before.

Weaknesses: Feels like the same games get recycled over and over.

Summary: I've played Mario Party 7 and 8 on the GameCube and Wii consoles and I loved them. When Mario Party DS came out I was really excited to buy it but it seemed like it was sold out everywhere. I just purchased it last week and have been playing it for a few days now. I'm very pleased with it and I feel it's just as fun as the other versions.-There's many different modes. The first one I tried was the "story mode." You have to chose your character (There's 8 to chose from this time and it's the basic characters- Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Waluigi, Wario, Yoshi, and Toad.) and place first on all 5 boards to complete the story. With each board you complete you receive items which are pretty much just trophys to view in the gallery. The concept of the boards is just like the other Mario Party games- hit the dice block, travel around the board collecting stars, and place "hexes" on spaces to steal items from opponents who land on them. After each round you play a mini game and whoever has the most stars at the end wins.-There are many mini games to unlock, however it feels like the same ones get played repeatedly. I noticed this in the other Mario Party games as well. The game's box boasts "70+ minigames!" which is a bit of a let down because after playing this game for about 10 hours so far, it feels like there's 4 or 5 games I've played a few dozen times and others I've only seen once or twice. -There's also lots of trophies and "badges" that can be collected by accomplishing various goals- earning a certain amount of "Mario Party Points" (Remember carnival tickets?), beating story mode with different characters, etc... It's nice to see your collection grow and try to get everything, but other than that, the stuff is pretty useless. I haven't looked at what you can do with the party points yet, but I'm assuming buy more trophies and games or unlock things like "expert mode" for the computer players.- There are also some separate games on here that are fun little puzzle games. They are mostly block games, where you move blocks around like Tetris (But none of them are really like Tetris' game play). These are a lot of fun and some of them are pretty addicting. You get Mario Party Points for playing them and one of the nice things is if you lose while playing the game, if you click continue, you can start on the level that you lost at instead of starting the game all over at level 1! -The best part about the game though, is the fact that you only need one copy of it to play with multiple players. My husband bought a DS light to replace his DS so we have two DS systems in our house now. We've been playing together which has been a lot of fun. There's a lot of different things that can be done through the multi-player mode unlike some DS games where you have access to 3 mini games and that's it. We played a few board games against each other, the puzzles can be played in versus mode, you can team up against the computer players, play with the computers in mini game challenges to see who comes out on top. Lots of content which would be great for households with more than one system or people who have friends that have systems. There is a bit of a wait for the games to load because everything has to be sent from the one cartridge, but the wait really isn't too bad and it beats everyone having to buy a copy of the game. -I would definetly reccomend this game to anybody who liked the Mario Party games for the other Nintendo consoles. Even if you've never played the Mario Party games, this one is a winner if you like playing games like this that feature many mini games instead of one long game you play from start to finish. I can see it being a lot of fun for the younger generation but many adults will find it fun too. So much can be done with just one game cartridge, so if you have children who visit with relatives or friends who's children also own DS systems, this game would be a great buy to keep them all busy!