Mario Party: Island Tour is the 12th incarnation of the series (I refuse to count that weird Nintendo eReader release), but surprisingly the first foray onto the 3DS.
The board-game structure of Mario Party has remained generally unchanged, but the hardware's extra abilities such as tilt, 3D, microphone, touch-screen andaugmented reality (AR) allowed developers to get more creative with the mini-games.
As usual, the games can be hit and miss in terms of substance and meaning. A criticism of Mario Party single player in the past has been the "luck" factor where a whole lot of effort can be destroyed in an instant, and Island Party is no exception. Mini-games are usually easy to win against the artificial intelligence (AI), so it seems like the game has to employ a brutal tactic every so often to "make a game of it".
This imbalance irons itself out during multiplayer modes because humans always react differently to AI.
I found myself turning the 3D feature off as it's not used that well unless using the AR feature, in which case 3D can definitely enhance the experience.
Perhaps the best single player mode is Bowser's Tower, which takes about 90 minutes to complete, but introduces a certain determination factor to reach the final battle at the top.
Island Tour allows up to three friends to use the " download play" feature, which is definitely the best way to play the game, but that means you need friends with their own 3DS. Ian Knott
