Like your favorite B-movie actor, Mario doesn’t seem to want to settle for just being famous for fighting a lizard king and his koopas. If anything, Mario likes to branch himself out in many different forms — tennis player, racecar driver and board-game honcho among them.

“Mario Party 4” is the fourth installment and the most entertaining of the series. With the added storage space that the Gamecube provides, this board game turned into video platform offers the gamer enhanced graphics and enjoyable gameplay.

For those new to “Mario Party,” the premise is simple. You take on the persona of one of the many characters in the Mario universe, like Wario, Princess, Toad and Waluigi, and wage war on a game board. Collecting stars is your No. 1 priority, but there are enough mini-games, item shops and koopa encounters to keep you busy along the way.

This game could be an exact replica of a board game — you have to “roll” dice to progress, there are tokens that either help or hinder and at the end, the only thing hurting is your pride.

People who come into video games nervous because the new controllers look like NORAD launch consoles can take heart; this game is extremely easy to catch on to. The mini-games all feature directions beforehand, and you can practice these games as many times as you want.

There has been many a novice gamer going into this game scared and coming out victorious — it’s that easy. The mini-games are simple but fun, taking concepts like plane races and carnival-crane games to a new level. On top of all this, when the mini-games are given out in the end of the round, there is a possibility that it will turn out to be 3 on 1 or 2 on 2, so there is an element of team-play involved.

Gamecube adds glitz, glamour and an excuse to use “Mario Party” as your favorite game on a Friday night. Friday night “Mario Party” is the best way to start your night of hard-pretzel eating. Yes, pretzel eating; just follow along for now.

The pretzel game is simple; whenever a mini-game happens after every round, the victor of the game gets to assign people two pretzels to eat. When you gain a star, you give someone a big pretzel or assign yourself a big pretzel to eat. The big winner of the game gets to assign a waterfall of pretzels to everyone, with he or she playing leader. That’s pretzels now, but of course you could substitute pretzels for just about anything.

“Mario Party 4” is a solid addition to any Gamecube collection. It is highly recommended that you have four controllers so you can maximize the play factor. Although it doesn’t offer anything completely different from its predecessors, it’s a solid buy and worth the time, even if just for the massive pretzel eating.