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Game Party for the Wii is a small set of casual games, some of which you'll play on your own, while others are best played with friends. You'll find Table Hockey, Darts, Trivia, Hoop Shoot, Skill Ball, Ping Cup and Shuffleboard. All of the games are played using the Wii Remote only. Typically you'd be playing the real-world versions in venues stuffed with screaming children or with air soaked with the aroma of brewed beverages and cigarettes. If you like these games but want a little more control over your environment, let's take a closer look.

For all of the games, you have an overall pool of game avatars (avatar being the little virtual character you use to represent yourself in the game). I didn't find any of them that exciting. There were several different girls with short, dark hair that I used for my avatar. The difference was mainly in the outfits. Body types and facial expressions were all pretty much the same. Apparently you start with 125 different potential avatars and can unlock up to about 50 more.

Game Party uses a ticket system to allow you to unlock additional variations to the game. The better you do, the more tickets you'll earn. The tickets will count in two ways. Each game keeps track of how many tickets you've earned in that game. These tickets potentially allow you to, depending on the game in question; unlock different game pieces, different game boards/machines and game variations. In addition, your overall ticket count unlocks additional avatars.

If you're playing a multiplayer game, you'll choose the number of players first. After you pick the number of players, if there's an option, you'll pick your avatar. You'll be picking your avatar at the start of every game. If you change games, it doesn't carry over. You won't be naming your avatar, either, or customizing them in any way. If you've unlocked different game pieces, you'll now choose your game piece variation. At this point, you'll either pick the machine/board variation or game and then machine/board variation. If there is an alternate game mode, you'll be choosing it during the game setup.

Table Hockey allows either one or two players. Apparently you can unlock other pucks and tables through earned tickets. I didn't earn enough tickets in this game to see for myself, because the game is so annoying to play. I kind of understand why the board is turned sideways; it's so you don't have to do split-screen if you're having a two-player game. The problem is that this makes the controls incredibly non-intuitive. Instead of moving the Wii-mote forward to launch the puck and side to side to block, you're moving sideways to launch the puck and up and down to cover your goal.

Darts allows up to four players. You'll begin with five games available: high score, 301, 501, 701 and cricket. You can unlock a baseball variation through earned tickets. At least with darts you're using the Wii-mote in a more intuitive fashion. It's definitely more like how you'd hold a dart. Since I have not played darts before, I was glad that I could hit the “1” button on the Wii-mote and get instructions. I did like getting to pick different colored darts once that was unlocked. The different boards were just a standard board with different color combinations.

High score was just a straight test of how many points you could earn. The 301, 501 and 701 games were a bit different. You start with that many points, and the point value you hit with your dart is subtracted from the total. You win these games by getting exactly to 0 points with the fewest throws possible. Cricket had you aiming for specific values. You had to get three hits each of 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and bulls-eye. If you landed one of the little double or triple point blocks for each point area, that would count as multiple hits. Again, you want to achieve the goal in the fewest throws possible to get more tickets.

The baseball variation was impossibly hard for me. The gameboard is marked with areas for homerun, single, double, triple, foul, strike and out (I think that's everything). You continue your turn until you get three outs. There are five innings to the game. You're competing against either a friend or the computer opponent for the most points in those five innings.

There were two versions of the trivia game. Each version allowed up to four players. If you are playing with friends, you're competing against everyone who can answer the question first. The categories are sports, music, TV and movie, kids, general, and history. The lightning trivia version (that you unlock) was brutal. In this version, you lose points for wrong answers. You can actually finish the game with negative points.

Hoop Shoot was really easy; I ignored the instructions provided on how to use the Wii-mote. The instruction screen showed kind of a forward/overhand throw. I used a gentle underhand throw and did quite well once I got the hang of it. I'm not sure why this game is only one player, but it doesn't really matter. If you and your friend(s) don't care about the avatar, just take turns and play again. The only time you use a name is when entering a high score, so you can easily share one avatar, pass the Wii-mote around and enter whichever name for the high score. You can unlock a red, white and blue ball for tickets and a different backstop, but the game remains the same.

Skee ball (or Skill Ball as it's called here) was always my favorite arcade game. Unfortunately, in this version, I can't get a good feel for the controls. I can move from side to side and set up a throw angle, but I can't seem to get any precision. I don't think it's me, because I do quite well with bowling in Wii Sports. The standard alley has the typical 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 100 point areas. If you unlock the clown alley, suddenly you only have 10, 20, 30 and 40 point areas on the clown face. It's not even possible to make the same range of high score with the unlocked play field.

I find Ping Cup to be a really awful game. You're at the end of a table with a set of glass cups at the other end. Your goal is to either land the ping pong ball directly in a cup or bounce it into a cup. A direct hit removes one cup from the field and earns 10 points. A bounce removes two cups from the field and earns 30 points. You want to earn points and remove cups as quickly as possible. The controls to even throw the ball were difficult to understand (my daughter totally gave up in frustration), and once you did manage to throw it, there didn't seem to be any consistency on how it responded.

Shuffleboard is the final game included. You have four pucks you're sliding down an alley — trying to get as close to the other end as possible without going over the edge. You and the other player also can try to aim to knock each other's puck off the table. Supposedly, if you earn enough tickets, you unlock curling. Ewwww.

I felt like the instructions for each game on how to use the Wii-mote were a little hit or miss. First, the instructions are only on screen (initially) while the game loads. Some of the instructions didn't even work that well for a given game (see Hoop Shoot).

The computer opponents at least had a range of skill unlike some other games I've played. You won't automatically lose to the computer every time in Game Party. Actually, you'll probably be better than most of the computer opponents if you can figure out the controls.

The venues change from game to game, and the music changes with the venue. Ping Cups seems to be at some sort of stuffy club. Darts is at an old English pub with appropriately bouncy music. Hoop Shoot looks to be at some sort of sports bar. The background graphics aren't bad — they aren't awesome, but they aren't bad. The music worked for the venues. The only real exception to this is the trivia game. There wasn't really a venue and no excitement with the graphics at all. You'll spin the wheel for the category or point and click an answer to a question. That's it.

You will have an abundance of virtual companions watching you play the game (except in trivia). Some of the games get pretty exuberant, like Hoop Shoot, and they pretty much grimace and look bored in Ping Cups.

The facial expressions of the avatar I'm playing are actually my biggest complaint about Game Party. They'll start out with a small smile, which immediately turns into a frown, and then a huge scowl if things go at all poorly. You have to be doing absolutely awesome to get them to actually look happy. If I'm playing darts and get a 15 on the board, I'm happy. Why is my avatar looking like someone just peed in her breakfast cereal?

If you like (really, really like) the seven games included, at just under $20, you might want to consider Game Party. Personally, I feel there are a lot more multiplayer games out there with a lot more content that are much more worthy of my gaming dollar. This one would really have to be in the bargain bin for me to even consider adding it to my game library.