That Mario sure likes to party. This is the fifth sequel to the original Nintendo 64 board game, but not much has changed. The varied denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom still take turns moving towards the coveted stars a few spaces at a time, with an assortment of weird but typically simple mini-games at the end of each round. A microphone peripheral has been included to spice things up, but most of the audio commands could just as easily come from pressing a button.
The single-player game is still unbearably easy. Even after unlocking the Brutal difficulty, it still feels like the CPU players are letting you win to spare your feelings. But then, playing Mario Party solo has always been as pathetic as having an actual party solo. Replacing each AI player with a real person increases the fun exponentially; or at least enough to warrant a three-star rating.
Kingdom Hearts: Chain Of Memories (E) (3 stars)
Square Enix
GameBoy Advance
Though advertised as a link between the original Kingdom Hearts and its upcoming sequel, Chain of Memories is more like a Cliff Notes version of the first game, with all the same Disney environments and Final Fantasy cameos. It does add, however, a convoluted, card-based combat system that takes hours to learn and moments to discard in favor of equally effective button-mashing. Ignore the card tutorials and just enjoy how cool Donald and Goofy look on that tiny screen.
Alien Hominid (T) (4 stars)
03 Entertainment
GameCube, PlayStation 2
Alien Hominid plays like the Metal Slug series' Internet cousin. The hand-drawn 2D graphics are certainly indicative of its Flash animation roots, but it's got all the frantic shooting of Contra and wicked humor of Metal Slug. And like those classic sidescrollers, Hominid is hard! With FBI agents firing at you from land, sea and air, biting everyone's heads off and recovering your spaceship is an epic feat.
Atari Anthology (E) (3.5 stars)
Atari
PlayStation 2, Xbox
Eighty-five games for $20 sounds too good to be true—until you realize three of them are Asteroids. Many of the games in this anthology haven't weathered well, and the ones that have are like a healthy 90-year-old woman. She might look great for her age but I'm still not going to date her. But if you're a hardcore gamer who still keeps a candle burning in your heart for Pong, this collection can't be missed.
Matthew Scott Hunter has been known to mumble, "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start" in his sleep. E-mail him at
[email protected].