Mario Party DS

Friendship is a precious thing, and Mario Party can be its most effective solvent. Mario Party DS brought the notorious party series to a handheld and proved that you do not have to miss out on that chaotic, unfair and gloriously fun competition for stars even when you do not have a TV and four controllers on hand.

Even those who have never played Mario Party know the format. You move your character across a board game by rolling a die, collect coins, buy stars and try to make your opponents' journey as unpleasant as possible. Between rounds you play minigames, short and inventive battles that decide who gets rich and who loses everything. And the minigames are the heart of the whole thing. On the DS they make full use of the touch screen, the microphone and holding the console upright, so you blow, draw, tap and twist the hardware.

The game was created by Hudson Soft, the series' longtime in-house developer, in collaboration with Nintendo, which published it. The story framework sends the familiar quintet led by Mario into a shrunken form after the treacherous Bowser turns them into little crumbs with a spell, which elegantly explains why you suddenly toddle across giant tables and board games. The single-player campaign here is surprisingly substantial and serves as excellent training for the main event, playing with more people.

Multiplayer is precisely why Mario Party exists. Mario Party DS made it possible to play four-player via wireless connection, and crucially, often a single cartridge was enough while the others downloaded the necessary data. This accessibility made the game an ideal title for travel, school and parties, where friends became mortal enemies for a few dozen minutes.

Mario Party was never about fairness. It is about that last roll of the die that turns victory into farce, about the random star that thwarts a perfectly thought-out strategy. And it is precisely this fickleness of fortune that keeps the series alive to this day. On the small DS screen it works just as reliably as on the television.

Why play: A pocket party full of chaos and minigames where, thanks to data download, you can play four-player from a single cartridge. The perfect friendship destroyer for the road.