The Ultimate Party Experience! At least, that's what the box for Game Party exclaims. Following the likes of Wii Sports, Wii Play, WarioWare: Smooth Moves, Carnival Games and dozens of other mini-game collections, Game Party is attempting to 'utilise the intuitive Wii Remote action'. This would be great if the game was as good as those previously mentioned, or even half as good, but in the state that it is in, Game Party is anything but.

Sorry about getting to the point there, but if you haven't already spotted the overall score then you need to know that Game Party is as bad as it sounds. There is no worthwhile 'game' to be found here and there is certainly no party. Ironically, this is the sort of game that you would be embarrassed to play with friends, including seven classic skill games from around the world. Sounds like tons of fun, doesn't it? Shame that the entire game is broken then.

When you boot up a game, one of the first things you see is a menu screen. From this, you shouldn't be able to tell whether the game is any good, which is exactly what happens here. The menu is nicely presented, with bright colours and bold icons and text, but once you move the Wii remote across the screen for the first time, you begin to doubt the quality of the game instantly because something feels wrong with the cursor. I found myself pressing the home button to see if the pointer settings were right, but then saw that the cursor appears in a completely different place to where it is situated on the actual Wii menu. It's disorientating to say the least, with you fumbling to pick options for the first few minutes. It may seem like a silly thing to point out in game - the control of the menu - but when you sell your game as intuitive and then can't deliver a simple pointing mechanic, something's definitely awry. It doesn't break the game - that happens once you've picked an option - but it is the start of the endless amount of things that go wrong, of which there are simply too many to list here.

There are only seven mini-games available Game Party, which might have been enough if each of them had plenty of depth. The surprising thing that I found with the game in this regard is that after playing each mini-game through until boredom kicked in, I looked at my watch and saw that it had only been twenty minutes since I loaded up Game Party. This wasn't because I was ploughing through each mini-game as quick as possible either; it was how long it took for me to grow tiresome of all of the options that were presented to me. If any longevity existed then this wouldn't be an issue, but with only the thought of gaining tickets - you use tickets to unlock additional content - keeping you going, there is no reason to go back to the worst of the mini-games. And sadly, the worst mini-games here are six of the seven on offer.

The mini-games themselves comprise of seven of your 'favourite' skill games, ranging from darts to shuffle board, all of which can be played with up to four people. These aren't the kind of sports found in Wii Sports, or the diverse set of games found in Wii Play; every game is an adaptation of another. Five of the games involve throwing a ball or dart forward, which should work well considering how easy this movement is to execute on the Wii Remote. Once again however, the developers seem to have forgotten this and have messed up the most crucial mechanic of these five games. The game, and instruction booklet, attempts to teach you how to perform the movements you need to make, but even so, I found myself being unable to throw the ball. This is as big of a problem as it sounds, as your character swings his or her arm at different times to you and never lets go of the ball. When you do perform a throw, the ball/dart never lands where you want it to, making these skill games impossible to succeed at. When you're given the task of throwing a small ball into a glass, this major flaw stops you from getting any points, thus annoying you even further. The basketball hoop shot game is even guiltier, with the way you are able to throw an unlimited amount of basketballs, trying - and failing - to rectify this problem. These five games are basically unplayable, leaving just two mini-games for you to dabble in - Trivia and Table Hockey.

The first of these two extra games is just as bad as the other five, because of the questions. There is no localisation to be found, meaning that all of the questions found in this limited quiz are designed with an American audience in mind. In each of the six categories of questions, including History, Music and Movies, you need a basic knowledge of American culture to get even the minimum points to succeed. So that's ruined this mode, the basis of which would have been fun if the questions were tailored for the country of release. That leaves one more mini-game and, as this collection goes, it's the best one, even if it is still below average. Air Hockey has you pointing the Wii Remote, without a cursor on screen, to move you character's hand, hitting the puck as it comes towards you. This works better than expected and you can enjoy a game or two for a small length of time. It may be the best option, but this game has been done before - on Wii Play - and that version was much better than the state it is in here. If there were at least two other mini-games of a similar quality to this - preferably higher - then Game Party could be worth something. With this combination of mini-games though, twenty minutes may be all you ever play of the game - any more playtime and you may soon begin to internally combust with the thought that you could be playing a much better game. And in this case, there are a lot of better games out there.

The Wii has been to host to your animated Mii counterpart since launch and the games that have utilised this have made the mini-games on offer even more personal to you. The main problem here is not the lack of Miis in the game, but rather the fact that Midway have replaced them with some of the worst character models ever seen in a game. The best word to describe most of them is disgusting and you will feel physically sick when looking at some of the things that are available from the character selection screen. Add to this the unnecessary addition of 175 characters for you to choose from - yes, you read that right, 175 characters - and you begin to seriously wonder about whoever made the decision of directing costs and resources to making close to 200 disgusting-looking characters rather than ensuring that the actual mini-games are entertaining. The visuals as a whole are unpleasant as well, with backgrounds looking like they have come straight from a badly designed dollhouse, one that is home to a pub no less. The music is even worse, forcing repetitive tunes into your head with disastrous results. Game Party is neither good looking nor musically proficient - is there anything it can do right? The answer isn't just no, it's absolutely not.

Game Party is one of those games that you will try your best to forget ever existed if you're unfortunate (or indeed stupid) enough to actually play it. All of the elements, from the god-awful controls to the disgusting character design, add up to create a game that no one should experience. For £20 - the price of this 'party' - you could buy a preowned copy of Twilight Princess, and so buying this instead would be a grave mistake. Even though you can play all seven games with up to four players, you'll be too embarrassed to even suggest playing Game Party; it is so horrible that it will hurt you to think that you spent actual money on it. We can all only hope that this is the end of the Wii mini-game collection downpour that has been in effect for the last twelve months, or at least the end of the Game Party that Midway is having right now. Play Wii Sports instead - that was free. There are no redeeming qualities to be found here; just the feeling of anger and madness that you get from the fact that Nintendo let this trash appear on their console. A very unfunny joke in every way, I can't even look at Game Party without thinking of the hours of my life that I lost while reviewing it - truly atrocious.

Reviewed by Sam Atkins for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).