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Our House: Party!

(2009, Video Games - Mini Games, Rated E, Play it on: Nintendo Wii)

  • Is it age appropriate?

    About our ratings

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    Not age appropriate for kids under 4, age appropriate for kids over 18; suggested age 8.

  • Is it any good?

    3.0

  • Common Sense says

    One giant commercial for Home Depot, but minigames are fun.

In this game kids can:   improve hand-eye coordination, play multiplayer games, play with others, race

Why We Rated This iffy for Ages 8–18

The good stuff

  • Ease of play:

    The controls for some of the mini-games are more difficult than others, but on the whole, Our House: Party! is relatively simple to play. The only issue is that, if the game is played by any fewer than four people, computer-controlled AI characters will fill out the empty slots—and they will be very, very tough competitors.

  • Educational value:

    The home improvement projects acted out during the game are all real things someone might do. There's actually something to be gained from seeing the steps that must be undertaken and learning which types of tools would be used for different jobs. 

  • Online interaction:

    Players can share their saved houses with registered friends. 
 

What to watch out for

  • Messages:

    Along with the heavy dose of Home Depot consumerism, this game encourages players to sabotage one another (in ways such as pulling nails out of the fence someone is trying to put up or smashing the tiles someone is trying to lay out on a kitchen floor). Characters can buy special tools at Home Depot that can aid in ruining your opponents' games. Also, the main goal of the game is money-based: Who can raise the value of their home the highest?  

  • Role models:

    The avatars you'll control are terrible sports. Winners of each round dance and gloat, while the losers throw tantrums.

  • Violence:

    You will spray bugs with pesticide, watching them crumple and fall. You may also accidentally hit a bug with a hammer, resulting in a spurt of green goo and a squishing sound. Losing players' avatars sometimes hit themselves in a head with a shovel out of frustration.

  • Sex:

    Not an issue.

  • Language:

    There's no real swearing to be heard, just Yosemite Sam type gibberish. But one grumpy old character's grumbling sounds a little too close to, "Oh, damn."

  • Consumerism:

    This game might as well be titled, "Home Depot: The Game." Home Depot ads are literally all over the game, and a shopping-at-Home-Depot mini-game takes place before every single round. 

  • Drinking, drugs, & smoking:

    Home Depot is a smoke-free environment.
 

What Parents Need to Know

This review of Our House: Party! was written by Christopher Healy

Parents need to know that this enjoyable chaotic party game is effectively one big commercial for Home Depot. The home improvement chain's logo and slogans appear incessantly throughout Our House: Party!, as well as messages about what great sales the store has. This extreme product placement has no direct effect on the gameplay, which is generally quite fun. Parents should also be aware of the game's materialistic goals: Build the grandest, most expensive house, and you come in first place. Richest-player-wins is a long-standing goal of many games, going back to Monopoly and other classics, but in today's economic climate and housing market, it may pose more of an issue for some parents. 

Families Can Talk About

Talk to your kids about the media in their life. We have more tools and tips that can help
  • Families can talk about product placement — why a certain brand name appears in a game or movie, and whether or not that means the brand is better than any other. Why would Home Depot want to market to kids?
  • Families can discuss good sportsmanship, and how they can compete against one another in games without hurting feelings or building resentments. 
  • They can also talk about importance of taking care of one's home. Why are some home improvement jobs necessities and other not?
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More on Our House: Party!

What’s the Story?

In OUR HOUSE: PARTY!, four players compete in a series of home-improvement themed minigames in order to beautify and raise the value of their virtual houses. Before each project, players will race through the aisles of Home Depot to beat each other to deals on tools. Then they will act out, with motion controls, tasks such as painting walls, connecting pipes, wiring electronic equipment, moving furniture, mowing lawns, etc.  Close

Is It Any Good?

Our House: Party! can provide an entertaining multi-player experience, as long as players are comfortable with incredibly unsubtle marketing throughout by Home Depot. Minigame collections for the Nintendo Wii are a dime a dozen , but the competitions in Our House feel fresh and different. And unlike many other collections of this type, each of the minigames in Our House actually leads toward one central goal. How you perform on each individual project will effect the appearance of your virtual house throughout the remainder of the competition. The ramifications of losing a round can actually be quite comical. For instance, if you come in fourth place in the porch-building challenge, your otherwise beautiful Victorian home will be stuck with a ridiculously ramshackle entryway, including dangling planks of wood and random holes in the porch floor. 

One other big gripe: there are random events that occur between rounds, which will either raise or lower a player's score, and could potentially decide the winner of the game in a very anti-climactic way. 

Close

Publisher’s Details

Released on 9/27/2009, price $39.99, not online enabled
ESRB rating: E (for Animated Blood, Mild Cartoon Violence)

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