Top 4 Essential Party Videogames

One of the best reasons to have a party is the party games involved. The parties my friends and I have are never complete without a round of Super Smash Brothers or a star-stealing game of Super Mario Party. 

Gang Beasts

Gang Beasts is a silly multiplayer melee party game in which you stumble around as a jelly-like character trying to throw other players off the stage. The character customization in this game is one of my favorite features. You can make your character any color of the rainbow and there are costumes ranging from cats and penguins to Morty and Trump. The stages themselves have various ways in which your character can interact with it. There are subway cars to run over players, wires you can cut to make elevators fall and vending machines you can drag across the floor. This game does not require a lot of skill, as the controls can be strange to use. This only adds to the silliness of the game. Gang Beasts is available for download on PC, Xbox One, and PS4.

Mario Party

This game is essentially a 4-player board game but inside your television! There are many iterations of this fan favorite with the newest release on the Nintendo Switch. This game involves turn based dice rolling and moving your character across the board as well as battling it out in minigames. The winner at the end of the game is the player who has the most stars, whether collected or stolen! This game is a classic in my books. However, be warned that your competitive spirit can tear apart friendships in this high stakes game. 

Super Smash Bros Ultimate

Now I’ve played my fair share of Smash Bros games throughout the years but none of them were as MASSIVE as Ultimate! This iteration of Super Smash Bros features over 70 characters to play as with more being added as DLCs. There are 103 stages with more being added as DLCs as well. Players can also customize and design their own stages as well as download other stages that users have made. The game can be played by up to 8 players. My favorite part of the game is playing as ROB and then spamming the side-B attack which really annoys my friends. You can play the game using Switch Joy-Cons, a Pro-Controller, or Gamecube controllers if you have an adapter for them. Having played a lot of Super Smash Bros Melee, I usually use the Gamecube controller. 

MarioKart

MarioKart 8 Deluxe for the Switch is a racing game featuring various Nintendo characters. This version of MarioKart has 48 different tracks. These tracks range from easy to difficult (think Babypark to Rainbow Road). There are 41 different characters to choose from that are from various Nintendo games. There are also 40 cars to choose from as well as many different tire and glider options. However, to get the full MarioKart experience with all of its options you will need to play for quite a while to unlock everything. This game is great for parties because you can play grand prix, which is a tournament style game mode. You can also have team races and balloon battles, among a host of other mini games. This game can be played by a maximum of 4 players on one TV screen, or 8 players if they each have their own Switch and copy of the game using a wireless local connection. I’ve been loving MarioKart since it’s days on the Nintendo DS Lite, I really like the motion controls available in this game.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate, MarioKart 8 Deluxe, and the Nintendo Switch console are available for checkout in Lindenwood’s media and gaming lab located on the 3rd floor of the LARC.