Party Planet (Nintendo Switch)
This game is jam packed with thirty mini-games that will have you duking it out for supermacy in your group, or climbing the ranks on your own and setting a really high score to taunt your friends with. I will say right now I absolutely love this game, and I would love to go on and on about each and every minigame. (As I write this I'm considering doing a small weekly series covering a number of games in each post) But for now, I'm going to give you my top four minigames in Party Planet, in no particular order.
Frosty Hockey
It should be no surprise that one of my favorites in Party Planet is a hockey themed game. I love any sort of hockey game, whether it's the recent (or older) EA Sports yearly titles, or anything gimmicky as long as it's hockey related. Frosty Hockey combines air hockey onto a field of ice. You'll control your paddle with the left joystick (or the only one if you have an individual joy-con) and you can use the A button to zip it towards the puck really quickly for a power shot. The objective is to be the first to score four goals, which are represented as a flag in your respective color at the top of the rink/screen. A very fun game, and a tricky one too, because you can be just as much of a threat to yourself as your opponent can. Bad angles and deflections can be the cause of plenty of own goals, but don't worry because your opponent will suffer them too.
Super Vegan Anaconda
This game should look incredibly familiar, as it's a spin on Centipede. You're in control of a snake that starts off incredibly small, placed in the center of a squared off playing field. The snake (or rather anaconda if we're being accurate) constantly moves forward, and you have to turn him with the left joystick in whichever direction to snag and eat all of the fruit that pops up. There are also a couple extra things that will pop up as well. A green vial of poison that, if you collect it, will reverse the directional controls for the snake (right will turn left and vice versa) for a short time. The other item is an ax that will shrink your snake by one section, allowing you to keep your current score level and have a tiny bit of extra room back to (hopefully) avoid running into your own tail. I personally loved this one because it was a bit more challenging than the original. With the original it was simply picking a direction between up, left, down, and right. With Super Vegan Anaconda (by the way, Mastiff and Teyon if you're reading this I love the name) it's more like steering instead, so it ups the difficulty a little bit more. You won't be able to head straight for the corner and zoom upwards at the last second, you'll need to give yourself space.
Lava Bridge Builder
Another game that draws a lot of similarities, except with this one it's something that's appeared in numerous mobile apps and I'm not all too sure where it originated from. The goal in this one is simple, you must navigate from platform to platform by building a bridge. Each gap between the platforms will increase and decrease at random, and they all have a small target placed on them. You build each bridge by holding down the A button, which will start building it vertically. When you believe it's long enough to fall and connect to the platform, simply let go and hope for the best. If you're right, you'll walk across and repeat the process again and again until you get it wrong. If you're wrong, well...as picture on the right above, you'll essentially walk the plank until you plummet into the lava. The targets on the platform are your way of scoring bonus points. You'll earn a "good" rating if you just get it in the target period, or a "perfect" if you manage to land touching the bullseye.
Rooster Romp
If I'm being completely honest, Rooster Romp was by far my most favorite mini-game in all of Party Planet. You play as the rooster on the bottom holding a try (with bouncing properties). Above you, sitting on the wire, are five other chickens who will periodically lay eggs. With the left joystick, you must wander back and forth on the ground. As the eggs fall, you'll need to bounce them with your tray to either side of the screen where you'll need to land them in one of the four nests (the higher nest earning you more points). You can also use the A button to give yourself a quick jump forward, just in case you might miss an egg. The game is never-ending, and you're allowed four misses represented by the eggs in the bottom left of the screen. (As you can see in the picture at this point I'd already missed two). In addition to regular eggs, there will be green spoiled eggs that have the same effect as the poison vial in Super Vegan Anaconda, reversing your directional controls, but it also has an added bonus that if you bounce it back up to the wire and hit one of the chickens, it will put them to sleep for a few moments, slowing down the action for a bit. There will also be a golden egg that, if you land this one in a nest it will restore one of your four miss-chances. Rooster Romp is a ton of fun and, in my opinion, one of the easiest games in the bunch to get addicted to.
This is just a small sampling of what Party Planet has to offer, and the game overall is a blast. Whether you're playing by yourself or with others, you will have hours and hours of fun with the wide selection of mini-games. Outside of these ones, there are plenty of others that put a new spin on either an old classic game like Asteroids, or a number of mobile apps, while mixing in a blend of fresh new ideas as well.
Party Planet is the perfect game for the holidays, for all ages. Don't miss out on a chance to stuff your stocking with this game!
Rating : 9.5/10
Develoved by : Teyon
Published by : Mastiff
Published by : Mastiff
