Pity Party

A video game can make you yell "yay" and "boo." But a game should never make you scream, "That's no fair!" And "Mario Party 8" makes me do just that.

"Mario Party 8" is a party game. You compete against other players in a series of minigames, where you essentially roll dice to travel along a series of colorful board games.

But time after time, I take the lead and close in on a win, when the game suddenly gives my lagging rivals a magical boost -- a "special bonus" -- to catch up to me.

This sort of inequity drags down the fun in "Mario Party 8" just as similar "artificial intelligence" blemishes better games. (How many times have you seen victory artificially ripped from your clutches in a "Madden" football game?)

Even if "Mario Party 8" weren't unfair, it wouldn't be on par with earlier "Mario Party" titles. The minigames are interesting, such as a haunted hideaway and an island board game. But it takes forever for each player's turn to start.

And a lot of minigames rely on the same old Nintendo tricks. You gather coins. Donkey Kong pads about in the background. Cutesy music plays.

This is all disappointing, since the game updates the "Mario Party" series to the Nintendo Wii. But Wii owners will be better off sticking to the excellent party games "Rayman Raving Rabbids" and "Wii Sports."

There is one other new party game called "Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree." It's infinitely more fair than "Mario Party 8." Inexplicably, though, "Big Brain" also makes players wait too long to take turns.

"Big Brain" is sort of like an entertaining IQ test. A clock times your progress while you solve various challenges having to do with visual trickery, memorization and math quizzes.

The test called "Whack Match" is just like "Whac-A-Mole." The game shows you a series of images, like a purse and a water glass, and you use a mallet to pound those images when they pop up from holes.

Harder minigames ask you to lay train tracks very quickly to get a toy train from one point to another. Or you play three-card Monte, but instead of cards you keep track of birds hiding in covered cages.

"Big Brain" is a fairly fun outing. I just wish it came with unrelated distractions, such as "Sudoku," as does the handheld DS game "Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!" Then again, I think "Sudoku" should be included in every brain game.

("Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree" retails for $50 for Wii -- Plays like a fairly entertaining school test. Looks OK. Challenging. Rated "E." Three stars out of four.)

("Mario Party 8" retails for $50 for Wii -- Plays average. Looks OK. Easy. Rated "E." Two stars.)