Mario Party 6

[The Daisy]

I guess with the Microphone port on the DS, this makes a bit of sense.

 

Planet Gamecube info on Mario Party 6

 

Glen

[JFo]

This does sound cool. I don't have Mario Party 5, but the microphone might be unique enough to warrant a purchase for number six. It should be very interesting to see how it integrates into the game.

[JTello]

Sounds interesting, and it's good that they are looking for fresh ideas, as the series needs a bit of innovation at this point if it is to sustain it's fan base, IMO.

[Mark E]

Well, it sounds like they might actually TRY with MP6, which is nice.

 

I agree the series is completely the same damn thing over and over. Which on the one hand isn't bad, I like getting my mini-games for friends year after year in various forms, but on the other it sucks shelling out a huge cost for barely new stuff.

 

I've only bought the Party titles when I could get them on sale, but MP6 might get a break depending on how cool it is .

[The Daisy]

I only have Mario Party 4, because I got it for $5 bucks at Circuit City.

 

I might take a look at this though, depending on how many other Mic titles there are. Can I get a Seaman sequel please???

 

Glen

[Rob B]

Originally posted by J.Fo@Aug 26 2004, 07:48 PM

It should be very interesting to see how it integrates into the game.

You're right Jeff it should be INTERESTING.

 

Should Be INTERESTING making you my bitch.

[Rob B]

Originally posted by gwhinwi@Aug 26 2004, 09:45 PM

Can I get a Seaman sequel please???

 

Glen

:lmfao:

[JFo]

Check it out. It's the new microphone peripheral:

 

http://planetgamecube.com/news.cfm?action=item&id=5595

 

It looks as if it attatches to the memory card B slot and not into one of the controller ports. I only wonder how long the cord will be. If we're lucky, it will be longer than the cords for the regular GameCube controllers, which we all know are far too short for the average living room.

[EnemaEms]

I'll bet that cord is no more than 6 feet long. However, someone will make an extension cable for it.

 

-Dean-

[JFo]

GameSpot has a hands-on preview of the new Mario Party in which it details some of the mini-games that utilize the new microphone. Check it out here. This game in particular sounds interesting:

 

Star sprint lets you direct one of the gang to pick up a star and race to the finish line. You'll prompt your character to haul ass by yelling, "Run," and will be able to direct him or her to jump, reverse, stop, switch positions, and even call the rest of the gang for help.

 

Oh, great! Knowing how easily I confuse verbal directions, I'll probably do a good job of amusing the other players. I wonder if, "No, don't do that!" can be used as a command.

[EnemaEms]

Picked up Mario Part 6 yesterday, but can't play it until Christmas. It is a gift for the 6 year old. We play the shit out of Mario Party 5, so getting this as an X-mas gift was a no brainer.

 

-Dean-

[MLivaudais]

haha, funny you say that. i got it yesterday as well, and I'm not allowed to open it until tomorrow night. A buddy of mine who we used to play mp5 with all the time moved to DC earlier this year. He's coming down this weekend to play mp6 with us. My girlfriend LOOOOVES mario party too. "I wanna be the party star!" It'll be a true Mario Party. How corny does that sound? :roll: :tu:

[EnemaEms]

"I wanna be the party star!" It'll be a true Mario Party. How corny does that sound? :roll: :tu:

Very.

 

-Dean-

[Tom]

So? How good is it. Anybody put some time into it? I had planned on buying on the drop date, but my second girlfriend, namely WoW has kept me from it.

[MLivaudais]

After playing the 5 regular boards, and unlocking and playing the 6th, I thought the reviews were on the lowside. Gamespot and IGN gave it a 6.9 and 7.0, both basically saying there was no innovation, and just a total rehash with new minigames. They also didn't like the mic games, which I thought were cool. I'd give MP6 between an 8 and 8.5, and I think it's better than MP4 and MP5.

 

They thankfully did away with the capsule machine. Why would you ever NOT want a capsule when passing that space? Hudson realized that, and they have spaces that automatically give you an "orb."

 

MP6 has 3 different boards where the ojbect isn't to simply land on the star space and buy a star. For example, on one of the boards, everyone starts with 5 stars, and the object is to steal them from each player. There's 3 chain chomp spaces on the board, and when you land on it, you can pay chain chomp to steal stars from the people in front of you. 10 coins for 1 die, 20 coins for 2 dice, and 30 coins for 3 dice. So if there's someone close, you won't risk the 30 coins unless you have plenty to spare or are in desperate need of the star.

 

Another board has Donkey Kong and Bowser taking turns rolling dice and going around the board. Every 3 turns on every board turns the day into night, and night into day. Different things happen at night and during the day. On this board, Donkey Kong plays during the day, and you can buy a star from him if you pass him on the board. Bowser plays at night, and if you cross his path, he takes away a star with the z star.

 

Another board allows you to buy up to 5 stars at a time if you have enough coins. 20 coins is the daytime price, and at night, a die determines the cost of the stars for the 3 night turns. In our case, they ended up being 5 and 10, so it made things real interesting stocking up on stars at night if you had the chance. It was pretty cool knowing that if you won a minigame, you'd have enough to buy a star or 2 during this particular time. It made the minigame competition even more competitive and fun.

 

My only disappointment with the game is that they took away the coin star at the end of the game. They replaced it with the orb star, the one who used the most orbs throughout the game. I thought the coin star forced you to use some strategy, and make sure you reach an unattainable amount of coins before you started spending them on whatever. Now, you can finish with lots of coins, and get nothing for it.

 

I think the minigames are better than ever. Always fun. If you're a fan of MP4 or MP5, it's a must have. No question.

[The Daisy]

Thanks for the review.

 

It's nice to see people in here actually play Gamecube games.

 

Glen

[EnemaEms]

MLivaudais,

 

Thanks for the review. We cannot wait to play this game. Mario Party gets a lot of love from my family. :tu:

 

-Dean-

[Mark E]

Another board allows you to buy up to 5 stars at a time if you have enough coins.

 

This is the board I played this morning in my inaugural MP6 foray and I must say the play style made it one of the best Mario Party boards I've ever played. Lots of stars and they're always available so your coins and your screw other people by putting stuff on spaces items play a WAY bigger role than they did in MP4 (haven't played 5 ).

 

The speed factor is noticeably up from 4 too. Things happen quickly. You get into mini-games a lot sooner and they're really, really good. MP4 had a few duds, but from what I've seen in MP6 there haven't been any losers yet. One of my absolute favorites has you duking it out with other players on a speeding raft as you try and punch one another off into the rapids. Mowtown is another great one where you have to try and mow as much grass as possible and reminds me of one of the mini-games in Crash Bash that I enjoyed in the day.

 

The mic is pretty neat and a total gimmick, but it's a FUN gimmick. My favorite so far was one in which three players are standing on various squares with fruit symbols. The other player names a fruit, and the floor drops except for those fruit squares. Players have to rush for the named fruit in time before they fall out of the game. The only mic hitch I saw happened here, where I said orange but it took out everything but the banana, but otherwise it did a great job. It added a little extra zip.

 

Huge improvement so far over the enjoyable but sometimes maddeningly tedious MP4 :tu:.

[JFo]

Thanks for the excellent write-ups, Mark and MLivaudais. I, too, thought Mario Party 5 moved a bit too slow because of the capsule system, so I'm happy to see it gone from this game. It's also nice to know that the boards offer some interesting variations on the Mario Party formula to mix things up a bit. I'll probably look into getting this one sometime after Christmas. There will certainly be some epic battles between myself and Bobbio in the not-too-distant future.

 

By the way, is the cable for the microphone as short as I feared it might be?

[Mark E]

By the way, is the cable for the microphone as short as I feared it might be?

 

Hmm, I honestly can't tell you Jeff, since it's not my mic and has since left

 

But it was definitely long enough to cross my own living room and reach my couch, but that's not much of a help without a visual aid .

[Tom]

Originally posted by Pharmboy+Dec 19 2004--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Pharmboy @ Dec 19 2004)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>The only mic hitch I saw happened here, where I said orange but it took out everything but the banana, but otherwise it did a great job. [/b]

 

That was so annoying. I had you in that minigame!!! :evil:

 

<!--QuoteBegin-J.Fo@Dec 22, 2004

By the way, is the cable for the microphone as short as I feared it might be?

 

I have not had any complaints on the length of the microphone cord. I haven't used any formal measurements, but I would place it at longer than the typical GameCube controller.Since you are already working around the controller wire length issue (unless you have gone WaveBird), it should not cause you any problems in playing at the length they ship with.

 

The only complaint I would have with the mic, is it is kinda cheap feeling, and does not really wow me in the styling department. I can't honestly say what I was expecting, but it was not what I received in the box.

 

My overall impressions of the GameCube Mario Party series have been good, better, great respectively for 4, 5, and 6.

 

Four had problems with the minigames and the "waiting for a turn" factor. Five had issues with the orbs and really negated the need to ever use them. Six has the speed of five and then some, has only really fun minigames, uses orbs effectively, and lets you get more than 1 star in a round, even if you're the crappiest player.

 

Now, couple that with the fact that in Canada 4 and 5 are still $69.99 while our local Future Shop (a Best Buy subsidiary) was selling 6 for $49.99 and you've got yourself one spot-on deal of a game.

[JFo]

Originally posted by Wesvans@Dec 22 2004, 01:28 PM

I have not had any complaints on the length of the microphone cord. I haven't used any formal measurements, but I would place it at longer than the typical GameCube controller.Since you are already working around the controller wire length issue (unless you have gone WaveBird), it should not cause you any problems in playing at the length they ship with.

Well, I don't use Wavebirds (I can't bear to lose the rumble feature), but I do use extension cables for my controller cords. That said, I'm guessing the microphone cable will still be too short for me.

 

I suppose instead of sitting here wondering about this, I could just run out and buy the damn game. I owe Bobbio some serious payback when it comes to Mario Party. We'll just have to make sure there aren't any weapons in the vicinity as we may end up doing more bodily harm to one another than usual.

[MLivaudais]

Originally posted by J.Fo@Dec 23 2004, 02:24 AM

Well, I don't use Wavebirds (I can't bear to lose the rumble feature), but I do use extension cables for my controller cords. That said, I'm guessing the microphone cable will still be too short for me.

It's too short :green: I think it's 6 feet. When we were playing, the person on the far sides of the living room had to get on the floor in front of the gamecube to partake in the mic mini games. 4 wavebirds here...

 

And the even bigger downside is that you can't purchase an extension, since it plugs into the memory card slot.

[Carlucci]

Spent lots of time this weekend playing this with my sons and nephew. I definitely feel it's an improvement over MP5.

 

I like the way the boards behave differently between day and night. The differences can really affect your strategy.

 

For instance, in the board MLivaudais spoke of with Chain-Chomp, in daylight you can only purchase one dice-block from him for 10 coins, period. But at night, you can purchase up to 3 dice blocks. If you know nighttime is coming (day and night last 3 turns each, I believe), you might hold off and wait until then to try your luck so you can cover more of the board.

 

On the board where you can purchase up to 5 stars, at night the price is determined by a random selection. So you might to to slow down and go at night, where the stars can cost as little as 5 coins. (but they might cost as much as 40 coins so it's a gamble)

 

I especially like the addition of the orb that slows down the dice block. This effectively lets you choose what number you roll (if you have good timing). It really helps when you want to get to the certain space or need to get a high number to advance quickly or a low number to slow down.

 

Maybe its just because my kids are getting older that the strategic nuances are standing out in this game, but I really think that MP6 puts a higher emphasis on strategy than all the other MP's.

 

 

Carlos.

[JFo]

Maybe its just because my kids are getting older that the strategic nuances are standing out in this game, but I really think that MP6 puts a higher emphasis on strategy than all the other MP's.

 

I'm glad to hear this. The Mario Party games usually rely more on luck and chance to win. It's nice to hear that every will be able to more effectively plot my doom when I do finally pick this one up. I'm serious when I say that. Whenever people play these games with me, especially if Bobbio is around, everyone will be working towards making me lose as miserably as possible. Maybe it's because I have a tendancy to win when we play other video games, and they're just trying to get sweet revenge. Yeah, that's probably it.