Game Party 2 for the Nintendo Wii consists of 11 rumpus room and backyard party games suitable for children, parents and grandparents. Surprisingly easy to pick up and play, the game options include: Beanbags, Darts, Hoop Shoot, Horseshoes, Lawn Darts, Ping Cup, Puck Bowling, QB (Quarterback) Challenge, Skill Ball, Shuffleboard and Trivia. Created for solo as well as team play, some games can accommodate up to as many as four teams and 16 players. The learning curve is low; many games are familiar and require little skill to score well.

Each game has a leader board, and high scores are tracked. Players can create profiles and customize their avatars with a variety of body pieces-parts (for example, heads, tops and bottoms). Players need not create profiles to play, but apart from the ease of getting your name up on the leader board with a single click instead of spelling out your name each time, players using profiles will be awarded tickets based on scores or results for some games. These tickets can be accumulated and redeemed for alternative playing equipment, such as different colored lawn darts and player pieces-parts.

There are four game modes: Best-Of, which can be set to 3, 5, 7 or 9 games (some games are limited to only two players); Loser Go Home (3 to 16 players), in which the player with the worst score is eliminated; Winner Moves On (5 to 16 players), in which only the player with the best score from each game moves on to the next round; and Head to Head, which can be used for any of the games.

Only the Wii-mote is required for play, and almost all games are played with a variation of holding the A button and releasing it at appropriate moments of the throw movement. This is definitely a collection of games to keep that wrist strap on as most games are throwing games in which the instinct is to release the object in your hand. Game Party 2 is not just a bunch of games in which high scores are easy to achieve. Some games such as QB Challenge and Shuffleboard are a little more difficult to master as aim and timing is important for the former; and precise placement with aim and force is important for Shuffleboard.

On the simulation side, some games such as Puck Bowling, Lawn Darts and Beanbags are excellent as players use appropriate force and movements with the remote. Others such as Darts and Hoop Shoot do not play as well and the movements can be awkward. With darts, the size of the remote and the need to press and release the A button made me feel like I was throwing a javelin instead of a dart, and the hoop shoot was done with an overhand throwing motion rather than how you’d expect to make a hoop shoot with a basketball.

Those small niggles aside, Game Party 2 is an excellent collection of party games with shallow learning curves and enough challenge to make it fun. With 11 different games and games such as Shuffleboard, which allows you to knock your opponent’s puck off the playing field, and trivia, which incorporates spinning a Wheel of Fortune type wheel to get a random question, there is little chance of players getting bored of Game Party 2. There is quite enough variety to keep everyone happy at your next large family or neighborhood gathering.