Review :: Start The Party

When you see a game like Start the Party on the shelves, you get the idea of what to expect from this Playstation Move launch title. The Party part of the title makes it clear to everyone this games was designed with multiplayer in mind – and what makes better for party play than a bunch of mini-games for the players to partake in.

How do you make like Start the Party enjoyable? – the answer is make the mini-games enjoyable, eye catching, different from each other and something that can be played never mind the age of the player. This is clearly something Supermassive Games must have taken into account in developing this. On top of this they’ve had to make sure the games work well with Sony’s new hardware. That’s definitely something that Supermassive Games have managed to pull off.

One of the great features of Start the Party is that the game uses augmented reality. Like the orginal motion controlled games for the, ill-fated, EyeToy, it places you on the screen using the Playstation Eye, with the Playstation Move controlled being replaced with the prop you will use on the mini-game. All the props used throughout the game, be it a racket, shaver or paintbrush to name a few, look great and work well. Best of all, they left me thinking ‘now that is clever’.

With the props working it is essential that the game makes great use of the Move features, and Start the Party certainly does a great job of showing off the possibilities available with the Move hardware. The game includes nine mini-games, although this is not a vast amount each game uses the controller in a different way to make sure the nine games are varied enough to keep the player entertained. Some of these games will have you cutting hair, swatting bugs, and colouring shapes on the screen. Not to dissimilar to something like WarioWare.

As it can be expected you will find that some of the mini-games will become your favourites. Personally I found the painting the game to be the best. This sees you painting set shapes on the screen within a time limit, the further you get in the mini-game the shorter the time allowed becomes. Once you have finished all the shapes (exactly how you painted them) come together to form an animated clip on the screen. Another I’d expect to become a firm favourite with may people is a game which sees the Move control become a shaver. Your job? To copy the hair style on the screen using the move and on-screen tool. Again this is timed per hair cut, and the further you get into the game the shorted the time available becomes.

As previously mentioned this game is clearly made with the idea of the game coming out for multiplayer fun, and that turns out the be the case with the single player being something you may find yourself tempted to play occasionally, but it wont be your first choice. The mode that has some single player appeal is the survival mode; this will see you playing against the clock to survive as long as you can across varied mini-games. The better you do the slower you will run out of the survival meter shown on the right hand side of the HUD – as what is left on the meter increases if you are performing well.  Unfortunately, this does have pretty limited appeal, and there is a chance this will just act as a tutorial for new players.

Presentation wise Start the Party uses a colourful display and the HD graphics available to maybe get one over on similar Wii titles. The in game props replacing the Move control has to be the best the most impressive thing, but it’s not too graphics intensive. Something that’s to be expected with the main part of the game based on augmented reality.

Overall you could say Start the Party is something you would expect from a launch title; it has a few flaws, but gives the user a feel of what is possible with the new hardware available for their console. It shows that Move is easy to use whatever the age of the player. But if you want a good party game then this is the way to go at the moment. Single player, not so much.

6.8/10

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