Our House Party! – WII – Review

The idea of home
improvement projects has definitely gone mainstream with a variety of television
shows dedicated to the subject and recently we are even starting to see
video-game titles being released with an eye toward the craft. Our House Party,
sponsored by Home Depot, was recently released for the Nintendo Wii and it may
be one to skip.

Our House Party
is essentially a home-improvement title that tries to incorporate the essential
motion controls. You will begin picking a house. There are goofy houses that
look like castles and ice cream shops or more "run-of-the-mill" houses you would
see in your neighborhood. Whatever you choose doesn’t really matter. The object
is to have the most valued house. How do you increase the value? Well, much like
Mario Party, you have to compete in a series of mini-games to improve your
house. The set-up has home-improvement projects and then you play the mini-games
related to the home-improvement project you and the other players choose.

Unfortunately,
Our House Party has a huge amount of problems. It seems to have issues on all
levels of the game. The biggest problem is the mini-games, which is the basis of
the entire game. First off, many of the mini-games just don’t make any sense.
There are tutorials at the beginning of every mini-game, but they just don’t
always hold true when it comes to the actual gameplay of the mini-game.
Otherwise, the controls are extremely strange in a lot of the mini-games and it
will frustrate you, eventually resulting in disappointment.

Other than the
mini-games, this title doesn’t really have anything going for it. Slow loading
times and sometimes glitchy graphics will make you want to trade this one back
in immediately.

The only light
at the end of the tunnel was seeing the end result of your home improvement
projects. At the end of every mini-game session, it shows the result of your
work. Depending on what place you come in depends on how good your project went.
It is always worthwhile to see your extremely awesome garage right next to a
broken-down garage the other players made.

Overall, if you
are a home-improvement buff and you want to translate your love and play it in a
video-game, this is not the game for you. If this game had been perfected and
had quality mini-games, it definitely could have been something. But for now,
you should just look past this one on the shelves.

Gameplay: 4.0
Strictly a
mini-game title, though the mini-games were boring and will have a lot of
players disappointed.

Graphics: 4.0
The graphics are
some of the worst you will see on the Wii. They will remind you of an older PC
game.

Sound: 2.0
Sound effects and
the song "My House" are really the only audio in the game. It could have
definitely used some more variety.

Difficulty:
Easy

Concept: 5.0
There aren’t a
ton of home improvement games and if made correctly, this game could have been a
lot of fun for some players.

Overall: 3.5
Our House
Party is yet another Wii title comprised of mini-games that just doesn’t stack
up to the other quality titles the platform has to offer.