Saturday, December 22, 2012

SS of the Week: Mario Party N64


Mario Party 64 
Let the games begin


My sister and I would play this game all night, every Christmas eve. Sure we played it other times, but somehow, this became the night. Our Nana would come and spend the night at our house, resulting in my sister giving up her bed and camping out in my room. This is what we did!


Let's get right to the pain factor, shall we? 

Just a few seconds and you'll be regretting it for days

Infamous Tug of War- 
Why was this so bad?

Well in order to play this game, and a couple others, you had to spin the joystick of the N64 around in a complete circle. Though you can do it with your fingertips, its way more efficient to take your palm of the hand on the controller, place it over the joystick and spin in a circle. This caused an instant bruise, cut, welt, whatever you want to call it. In fact, gamers were so notorious for this, Nintendo actually made a Glove, yes 1 glove you could receive from them if you sent in your receipt and UPC from the box. Well, it was a Christmas gift from Santa so though I tried, I never got the glove. It would have been cool but whatever. Heh I found a handy picture to capture the essence of this little story.

Does this look familiar? If not, you are doing it wrong.


The mini games you play to get coins to win the game come in 4 player, 3 vs 1 and 2 vs 2. Sometimes its basically the computer outweighing you or holding you down. With the controls of the two computer players being set to 'easy' this can pose a problem. 
Well, we didnt want the computer to come in first....

Screw over your friends! Jump on top of them and under the '? box' to take their coins and smush them so they cant get any coins themselves! Bwuhahaha

Screw your friends #2: Pick them up and rob their coins. 
(Plus its so funny to watch em wiggle.)

S.Y.F. #3: Bump them off the cliff by pretending to dangle on the side, move quick and side bomb them to victory!


More like screw yourself....Tap A!
More more more, AAAAAAA to live! (Or is it B??)

BBBBBB hurry!  eh this mini game sucks. Its not alot of fun and not a big payout unless you get the bag of coins which you probably will have to sacrifice so you can stay alive on a 10 second spazz game.


Not to mention you get screwed by the computer at every turn. One minute you are in first place with stars, the next BOOM! you got screwed. Your friend spent up their monies to screw you.

And here, the crappy Easy mode for your CPU ends with death to you - 

Here's to hoping you and your friend end up on the same side because the CPU is more like a big anchor (or shark or Satan) and will sink you and kill you until you freak out and curse out the character's name, and wish certain evil onto their soul.

Whooo getting a little carried away here....

Have the lamest partner, the CPU, tank you into last place with ease.
In conclusion, the word screwed comes up a half dozen times, which clearly indicates the fairness of the CPU and the outcome of the games.

Yes they went on to make sequels, yes we played them too, and yes they suck in their own special way, but none actually make you bleed like this game. Mario Party 64.
What the hell kind of hellish awesomeness is this, in conclusion, to definitely be played during the holidays, when its ok to screw your friends or sister! They get you back. Its all in good fun now.

Sounds like complaints, but it really is fun. How, well, that's a different explanation...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!







2 comments:

  1. My friends and I are trying to remember the other games besides Mario Party that had frantic joystick spinning. Can you help?

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  2. I believe there is a mini game in Donkey Kong 64 that requires joystick spinning, but awaiting confirmation. Most complaints I have ever heard were all from the first Mario Party in certain mini-games such as: The Rowboats,
    Castaway, Tug of War, Winding up the Shy Guy (and more if you can recall the official mini game name)...these were all painful mini games in Mario Party 1. We will never see MP1 on the Virtual Console because of the holes-in-palm incidents. After the controversy of the spinning joystick injuries went public, Nintendo made sure to revisit their gameplay and eliminated the need for spinning speed in future MP and other games.
    In my opinion: No Pain, No Gain.
    Tug of War was the worst because you were about to lose more than just 10 coins, you will lose a layer of skin on your hand.
    Thanks for reading!

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