It's Mario's Party--Cry If You Want To

By AARON CURTISS

May 31, 2001 12 AM PT

aaron.curtiss@latimes.com

If there’s one thing Nintendo has shown itself adept at over the years, it’s milking a franchise for all it’s worth. Witness the never-ending stream of “Pokemon” titles and the 12-year run of the company’s 8-bit Game Boy hand-held.

So it goes with “Mario Party 3,” the third incarnation of a basic animated board game for Nintendo 64 that spices up things with tons of entertaining mini-games. The first one was great fun. The sequel improved many features. But this third version--though it has its moments--is just a little too mercenary.

Players in “Mario Party 3” collect Star Stamps in order to prove themselves worthy of possessing the Millennium Star, which has fallen from the sky. The person who collects the most Star Stamps wins the game and gets to keep the Millennium Star--at least until someone turns off the Nintendo 64.

Woo.

Hoo.

As with the other “Mario Party” titles, the board game component of “Mario Party 3” is about as much fun as watching someone else eat a salad. Even though as many as four people can play at once, it’s achingly dull--and the cutesy animations and sound effects only make it worse. The board--which scrolls left and right, up and down--is jammed with all sorts of little power-ups that will leave many players completely baffled.

For instance, of the 20 items players can collect or buy on the board, some of the stranger ones include the Bowser Suit--which allows players to dress up as the evil lizard and steal coins from other players--and the Cellular Shopper--which enables players to pick up a magic item from anywhere on the board.

Don’t worry if none of this makes sense. It barely makes sense within the context of the game, which is overly complicated in the same mind-numbing way that most failed party games are. Kids may dig all the intricacies, but forget playing this as a family unless you’ve got a few hours to learn all the ins and outs of Koopas, Goombas and Thwomps.

The one saving grace of “Mario Party 3” is the scads of mini-games packed into the cartridge. At the end of every round of turns, players face off in simple, fast-paced games to earn extra points. For instance, players can play digital hide-and-seek or a game in which teams furiously pump air into model rockets to see how high they go.

These are by far the best moments of “Mario Party 3,” but even they don’t reach the same caliber as those in the first two versions. Sadly, most of the game plays as if it was developed under the uninspired mantra of “Hey, the other ones sold, so let’s make another.”

Save yourself the $50 and pull some traditional board games such as Scrabble, Sorry or Stratego out of the closet. You’ll have more fun.

‘Serious Sam’

Sure, “Serious Sam” plays like just about every other brainless first-person PC shooter out there. And, yes, its story of one man against the universe would need to cook a little longer to be considered half-baked. But dang it if “Serious Sam” isn’t one of the most viscerally interesting games in a while.

See, about 100 years in the future, humankind falls under attack by creatures from another dimension. The only hope is to send a super warrior--that’s where Sam “Serious” Stone comes in--back in time to find an artifact that will send all the creeps back to their own slice of the space-time continuum.

In other words, players traipse through some very nicely rendered Egyptian temples blasting away at just about everything. This includes headless zombies with bombs for hands and animated cow skeletons.

Mission objectives, such as they are, reveal themselves through a nice, unobtrusive information system that also clues players in to new types of enemies and how best to survive their attacks. It isn’t easy.

Although many baddies prefer simple, straight-on brute force attacks, many others exhibit some nasty artificial intelligence and seem to delight in nothing more than seeing Sam suffer. Plus, there are times when the screen is literally filled with attacking monsters. Even with dead-on shooting, it’s impossible not to suffer damage in these swarms.

Levels seem to sprawl on for miles and some of the temples are stacked so deep that it’s easy to get lost amid all the staircases and passageways. The detailed corridors offer plenty of nooks and crannies to hide and seek cover.

Even during the heaviest fighting, “Serious Sam” never slows down or hiccups. And its online, multi-player option promises more of the same.

Despite a name that might be confused as a little kid’s game, “Serious Sam” is a super-violent, super-fast blastathon for adults looking to blow off a little steam without thinking too hard.

Aaron Curtiss is editor of Tech Times.

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The Skinny

“Mario Party 3”

Genre: Action

Price: $50

Platform: Nintendo 64

Publisher: Nintendo

ESRB* rating: Everyone

The good: Some nice mini-games

The bad: Achingly dull

Bottom line: Save your money