Mario Party DS is a delightful debut for the series on the twin-screen handheld, easily besting the below-average Mario Party Advance. However, the lack of Wi-Fi support and balanced artificial intelligence keep it from being a party to remember.

In the game, Bowser invites the plumber and his friends over for a party. However, as tempting as the offer is, they soon realize that it's a trap. He slams a cage down and shrinks them with a miniaturization rod. It's up to these pint-sized heroes to work their way through a series of game boards, picking up stars and eventually returning to normal size to settle the score with ol' spike-shell.

Mario Party's board design isn't amazing by any means, but it is effective. You'll find plenty of spaces to earn blocks, challenge opponents to mini-games and purchase stars. However, just as in previous games, you'll find yourself ambushed by enemies that like to punish you too often. For instance, let's say you're a few spaces away from a precious star. You have enough coins to buy it, but then Bowser jumps out of nowhere and robs you blind. This happens more often than we'd like, resulting in unnecessary frustration.

We're also miffed at the annoying AI. Set the difficulty on hard and opponents will zip ahead of you via shortcuts to purchase stars. However, set an easy or normal difficulty and they're easily defeated. There's no medium ground. Furthermore, if you team up with an AI opponent in any of the two-on-two mini-games, you'll find yourself needing to do a majority of the work to win.

A lot of the games are actually fun, whether you throw food onto conveyor belts to knock down opponents or dodge incoming soccer balls kicked your way by a menacing Thwomp. Most of these games involve precise touch-screen movement or blowing into the microphone, making proper use of the DS' capabilities. Only a couple of the games are duds, but you won't run into them that often.

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