Wii Party

They wiggle their bottoms, give each other high-fives, pull ridiculous faces and turn into babies, superheroes, astronauts and mermaids. One mode, which has you attempting to pair off Miis by uncovering matching shirts, sees a couple dance a hilariously camp jig that's silly and disarmingly cute. Who knew Lady Gaga and Stalin would get along so well?

Everything is still structured around mini-games but there's much more variety in the setup. Mario Party might have had multiple game boards for 1-4 players but one often felt like a mere reskin of the others. Here there's just one board joined by four completely different modes. The estimated completion time is helpfully listed for each, so whether you're looking to entertain guests for 15 minutes or an hour you can find a mode which suits your needs.

There are two co-operative modes for two players, including a great one where you both need to balance a boat by placing Miis in the right place on the mast. Perform well in a minigame together and you'll get a small Mii as a reward; do poorly and you'll get a ship-topplingly gigantic one.

The third option from the main menu offers a handful of modes which the marketing blurb will no doubt describe as "taking the game out of the screen and into your living-room!" One game tasks players with identifying animal calls through the remote speaker, the winner being the one who's quickest to pick up the controller making the right noise. Another has one player hiding the remotes from the rest as they wait outside before attempting to ascertain their position from the sporadic chiming sounds they make.

A last-player-standing variation turns a single remote into a bomb to be carefully passed around. Players have to ensure a given button is pressed down as they pass the controller, and an onscreen display monitors movement. delicate handling is required to prevent a premature explosion. For these modes more than the rest, three or more players are practically a requirement; they're simply not as enjoyable with two.

Tucked away in the corner of the screen is an option which takes you to another selection of game modes. Here you can simply play any mini-game you like (unlike Mario Party, you don't need to unlock them first) or try out a couple of simple multiplayer asides where you're not reliant on a lucky dice roll or spin of a wheel to determine your fate.

Nintendo has also squirrelled away three addictive single-player puzzle games, one of which – involving clockwork Mii toys and plants which need watering - is a particular delight, growing ever more fiendish as a new gameplay wrinkle is introduced every few stages.

Of course, most of this effort would be for nothing if the mini-games themselves were no good. The good news is Wii Party features the best selection since Mario Party 4. All use simplistic and intuitive controls that rarely feel clunky or awkward. Hudson had a weird knack of making Mario and co. seem sluggish at times, but that's never a problem here.

Thankfully, only two or three of the mini-games boil down to pot luck. You're less likely to lose ground against your rivals simply because you're rubbish at guessing stuff. The games are often genuinely funny, too; losing is less of an issue when failure brings its own slapstick reward. It's all very intuitive and accessible even in its Japanese form, with just a couple of games remaining unfathomable to those with limited knowledge of the language.

Simplicity may well be Wii Party's trump card. While Microsoft and Sony wage their own private motion control war, Nintendo's unassuming little game remains free from the constraints of expensive peripheral dependency, with the potential to quietly steal their holiday season thunder.

There might be better family games this Christmas – Sports Champions and the excellent-looking Dance Central are both shaping up as worthy contenders for that particular title. All the same, you'd be a fool to bet against Wii Party being the biggest hit of the lot.