I thought I was playingGemstone. The Mario Party games are supposed to be games, you know, where you push buttons and silly shit happens. That s how the party games genre should be. The action should escalate into yelling and hollering and arguing and a general good time is had by all. For whatever reason, there is so much text in Mario Party 7 that I felt like I was playing a MUD. Next time, streamline the storyline (as in get rid of it) reduce the game to a series of mindless party games and return the fun to the series. If I wanted to read a book, I would. Mario Party 7 isn t an RPG, someone should make sure Nintendo knows that next time around.

Nintendo bagged popular comedian Takashi Okamura for TV ads to hock the new Mario Party. I have a soft spot for Okamura. He's from the neighborhood where I live, extremely funny and a good breakdancer. That said, this ad totally creeps me out.

Mario Party Ad [IT Media]

Nintendo's trying something a little different this time around with Mario Party. You can pick up a copy of Mario Party 7 on Nov. 7 for the retail price of about $50 or pony up another $50 for a pretty decent bundle.

The Mario Party 7 bundle comes with the game, two controllers and the Gamecube. (That's worth about $175 if you were stupid enough to pay full price for all of it.) Copies of the game also come with a microphone.

Mario Party 7 includes 80 mini-games and supports up to eight simultaneous players this time around.