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The board game format has been rather a hit and miss affair when it comes to consoles but the Mario Party series always gets the recipe for fun just right. You play as Mario, or one of his friends, in a 3-D board game where you throw the dice to move ahead on the board and collect goodies along the way. Depending on which colour square you land on you might get coins, candy or a surprise, with the winner the one who collects the most stars.
It's called Mario Party 8 but it's technically the 11th in a series that first began on the N64 in 1998. There are plenty of carnival games and brain teasers on the market, but they are either too intellectual or too silly. Apart from Wii Brain Academy (which has far fewer games than this) Mario Party 8 is the most enjoyable Mario game after Mario Kart, stocked full of fun challenges, not just in the board game realm but also with mini-games that can be played by up to four people.
The Party Tent area includes five 3-D board game challenges set in Boo's haunted mansion, Koopa's monopoly-like town or, best of all, Donkey Kong's jungle. The Donkey Kong board works best by being a lot like snakes and ladders. You can climb ladders, descend in barrels or be fired out of a cannon to a distant part of the board by Kong himself. Instead of rolling a dice, you must smash it above your head with your fist. It only goes up to ten but you can pick up candy (replacing orbs from previous games) that reward you with two or even three rolls of the dice. The total amount is added together and you could in theory move up to 30 spaces in one go. Candy can also let you jump to the same point as other players on the board or electrocute them with lightning.
Land on a blue square and you'll get three gold coins. Land on a red one and you get three coins taken away. Green squares are random, in that you may get a candy taken away as tax for being let past, but you could get coins in return for the candy. Just hope you don't get the three monkeys on barrels who roll down the board crushing anyone who gets in their way. If you manage to land on a square marked 'DK', Donkey Kong will pop up and helpfully throw you onto a star square where you can purchase said star for 20 coins. If you don't have enough money, Bowser will pop up in a rage and move the star further away. What a ****!