Mario Party 2

Come on over to my place... Everyone likes going to a great big party with music, food, drink and plenty of chances to get the boy/girl that you really fancy to join you around the back of the couch for a couple of rounds of tonsil hockey! In most cases though, parties aren't actually like this. They usually consist of someone moving the dinner table to the corner of the room to put the cake and jellies on and then your mother playing her Stars On 45 medley CD. No-one you even remotely fancy bothers to turn up and the strongest drink in the room is the lime cordial. The end result is total and utter boredom and misery, especially when you discover that up the road there is a better party hosted by the girl who once appeared in the audience for Top Of The Pops, and all your best friends have gone to it! That was the worst 21st birthday I ever had, sob! (Pull yourself together Paul! – Roy) Er... anyway, not all parties have to be full of distress, depression and a strong sense of anti-climax. In fact, some parties can't help but bring a smile to your lips, and Mario Party 2 is definitely one of them!

I'll Cry If I Want To...

If you have any idea what Mario's first party was like then there is a good chance that you can make a fair assumption as to what the main point of this one is. In case all this is new to you however, let's take this opportunity to recap on what makes a Mario Party. Set in the lovely world of Mario and friends, four characters are chosen from the many available and they proceed to move around a board game-style land, playing mini games, winning and losing money and collecting as many stars as possible before the game comes to its natural end. It really doesn't get any more complicated than that.

Each character has traits that give them an advantage or disadvantage in certain parts of the game. There are tons of games to choose from, none of which are that hard to figure out and thus you can pretty much just jump straight into them. Simplicity and fun are the only major components to this game, and if you have been looking for something tougher to chew on then this really isn't the cart for you, although it's ideal for the younger player.

family to get together and play for a while. For that reason alone Mario Party 2 is worth buying (that is, if you are part of that classic 2.4 children statistic). The games are just challenging enough for the older boys and girls to bother investing any time in, and simple enough for the little ones to grasp and enjoy too.

Having said that, some of the games boggle the mind and leave you asking "What happened there? I thought I was winning and now I'm 100 coins down on the deal?" There are some mini games that feel like proper arcade-style challenges, while some make you wonder what the programmers were smoking when they designed this!

The controls vary according to the game, but are never overly complex. When you find yourself inside a mini game, each one is so simple to grasp that worrying what to press is the last thing on your mind. One minor problem in this respect though is that sometimes the buttons don't seem as responsive as you'd like. No matter how fast the buttons are bashed or how accurately, it seems that at times the characters on screen just don't want to react as quickly as they should, causing quite a bit of frustration in the process.

Celebrate Good Times... Come On!

In one-player mode (you against the computer), despite being able to set the opposition at different levels of difficulty, the actual difference between 'easy' and 'hard' modes isn't that great. In fact, setting it on 'easy' is more than enough challenge anyway. The options within the game are plentiful, allowing you to choose what land you play in, which characters you play against, how hard the game should be and the length of the game, courtesy of the number of turns it comprises.

In many respects, one of the weakest areas of Mario Party 2 is the board game section itself, especially if you are playing alone. Choosing how many moves you take, making that move and then waiting until every one else has done the same can be quite a chore, and ensures that there can be no such thing as having a "quick" game of Mario Party. Ideally, the game is meant to be played by a group of friends (the magic number – of course – being four).

When four of you decide to gather around your N64, only then does the game really come to life. With four sets of hands bashing buttons or wiggling analogue sticks the game becomes far more enjoyable. When playing it alone there can be a tendency to complain that the game is "rigged" when a computer character – supposedly set on easy – is consistently doing ten times better than you, but of course you can't make this claim when all the other players are human too! (Well, not without sounding like a bit of a big girl's blouse, anyway.)

Snow Is Falling...

Overall the mini games in Mario Party 2 don't seem quite as much fun as the games from the first title and some (as mentioned above) beggar belief. The only real difference between this and the previous title is that this one is only slightly less simple to play (if that is possible) and in the process a tiny bit of the fun has been lost. It almost seems that to improve upon the original they have just made it that little bit more convoluted. Mario Party 2 is an innocent enough title that opens up the N64 market to people who wouldn't really want to blast away zombies from a first-person perspective or leap from platform to platform in the guise of someone brandishing a magic wand.

The bottom line is that if you already have the first Mario Party in your collection, then there really is no need to invest any more cash into this sequel, as they are too similar to warrant having both and to be honest – the first one is better. Despite this, Mario Party 2 is still good fun in one-player and even greater fun with friends, but then again, isn't every thing in life?

Something strange in your neighbourhood?

Although Horror Land is scary enough (and it scared the hell outta us anyway) there are four more reasons to be fearful of this devilishly creepy area!

• Spectres

Although they turn up in every area, these Big Boos can most commonly be found in what seems to be their natural environment. These spooky little beggars will, for a price, steal coins or even stars from an opponent and place his booty in your account. Beware though, because these guys, being ghosts, only come out at night, which brings us nicely on to...

• Night and Day

...controlling time! When you (or indeed anyone else on the game board) lands on a certain circle marked with a question mark then in this area night changes to day, or, day changes to night. This not only determines when ghosts appear but also when the magic stones come to life! This phenomenon also takes place naturally after turns.

• Wizard Bowser

As always, when Bowser appears things do not look good for the rest of you. When a Bowser Bomb is picked up then this means Bowser makes a very unwanted appearance. He rolls the dice and proceeds to march around the board until all his moves run out. In the meantime, anyone he comes across finds themselves suddenly bereft of cash!

• Eyeball Bonus

Don't ask us what hovering eyeballs have to do with warping to another place on the board as it seems a bit too odd for even us to fathom. Still, if you want to pay this ocular apparition to beam you elsewhere it will gladly oblige by quickly rolling towards you, forcing you to run away! It eventually disappears and you then find yourself somewhere else on the game board!