PixlBit

The Family Party series started earlier this year and while it didn't light up the critical world, it was successful enough to spawn a sequel. Once again developer Tamsoft brings about 30 great games, this time with an outdoor theme. In actuality, these games aren't too great as many are incredibly confusing or almost completely broken. The remaining decent games aren't good enough to overshadow the bad ones.

The games are split into six different categories with five games each. Unfortunately you only start out with three of the categories. In order to unlock the others, you need to win medals in Challenge mode. So in order to fully unlock all of the 30 games, some of which return from the first game with slight differences, you need to put some time into the game.

After you unlock the games, they appear in the game's other playable mode, Battle. You can pick out up to 10 games to play in a row this way. Although I'm not sure if there are 10 games in Family Party that are fun enough to play that close together.

The main problem with Family Party is that some of the games are just broken. For example, there is a rope climbing game where you have to race to the top while jumping between ropes to avoid caterpillars and pick up bonus items. First off, this game uses one of Family Party's favorite asinine control inputs, which boils down to pressing the A and B button and shaking the Wii Remote once, then letting go and repeating ad nauseum. The gravest offense of this specific game is that the screen only follows the person in the lead. So, you could be struggling at the beginning, which is almost a given the first time you try it, and then get caught at the bottom of the screen without knowing what the hell is in your way. While no other game is as bad as this, a lot of them employ the same screen-panning problems.

Some of the games often don't make any sense until you play them a few times as the tutorials are very poorly written. I never realized how wonderful the practice option is in the Mario Party series until now. However, if you suffer through learning the games that work, you can derive some enjoyment from this budget title as long as you have friends around to laugh about its problems.

Family Party: 30 Great Games Outdoor Fun seems made for families who enjoy suffering through awful things. If you're looking for a high quality mini-game collection, there are many other better choices, including Nintendo's Wii Sports Resort, Hudson's Deca Sports games, or even the Game Party series. In a crowded market, you'd be better off leaving Family Party where it should be: on the shelves.