DESCRIPTION

Are you ready to party, Mario style? If so, then you and three friends are all invited to a special competition to see who can collect the most stars. Take turns rolling dice and moving along one of seven game boards filled with colorful spaces and 3D characters. There's a twist, however. Once you land on blue or red spaces, you'll have to compete in various mini-games!

Win the event and you'll receive coins, which can later be used to purchase stars from Toad's space (twenty coins buys you one star). If you happen to land on Boo's space, you can pay the ghost fifty coins to steal a star from another player! Each mini-game (there are 56 in total) involves a different amount of players, with the majority being four-player simultaneous events.

These range from "Hot Bob-omb," where each character throws an active bomb around like a hot potato, to a "Fishing Derby" where you try to reel in the most coins with your pole. There are also several one-versus-three, two-versus-two, and one-player mini-games to add some variety to the competition. Each Mario Party game consists of a specific number of turns (either 20, 35 or 50), so the player with the most stars at the end of the last turn is declared the winner.

Don't have any friends to partake in the festivities? Mario Party allows you to play against computer characters with three adjustable difficulty levels. Six of Nintendo's finest will serve as the game's pieces, including: Mario, Princess Toadstool, Luigi, Wario, Yoshi and Donkey Kong. Each game board is built around these characters and offers slightly different layouts and traps.

Find yourself losing too many events? Players who aren't faring so well in the mini-games aren't necessarily out of the running; the board features certain spaces that cost coins to pass through or characters who'll redistribute stars between players! There's also a smaller Mini-game Stadium allowing you to play a faster game that just involves gathering coins. By the way, the 256-Meg cartridge records all of your stars and coins so you can purchase assorted items and power-ups after each game. Party on! ~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide