LEGO Party is saving my half term — why you need to snap up this Mario Party rival

LEGO Party is hard. And as a — cough — 40 something year old, I've have played my fair share of hard games.

Whether it's the infuriating but beautiful Demon's Souls, the fun but frustrating Cuphead, the almost impossible Lion King (seriously) I've played them all and enjoyed them, despite their near impossible impenetrability.

And then there's LEGO Party. There's no denying that this is a Mario Party rival, riffing on the similar mini game gameplay where you win studs, instead of coins.

But where Mario Party keeps the hardness level to manageable, LEGO Party isn't afraid to make some of its games complex — and I'm not just saying this because my nine-year-old son beat me frequently when I played him.

LEGO Party is hard and unapologetically so, and it makes for a game you will want to come back to again and again — which means it is the perfect game to fill up what can be a very long half term.

Party, LEGO style

While I played LEGO Party on the Nintendo Switch, the key thing here is that LEGO Party is available on the likes of PlayStation and Xbox which means that those users finally get a Mario Party rival that's decent.

The idea for the game is simple: you play against (up to) four LEGO figures — co-op or online — where you go around a virtual 'board game' trying to get to the end first, while playing mini games to win points and become an eventual victor.

The board you roll a dice on and play on is packed with areas that will reward you with things like golden bricks or punish you and take studs from you.

You can create your own Minifigure, which is a lot of fun and ties in nicely with the physical world of LEGO. Once this is done, you have the choice of playing just the Mini Games or playing the full fat version of the game.

If you go down the board route, then there are a lot of fun LEGO elements, such as being able to building bits that are in keeping with the style of whichever board you choose.

Seriously, just doing this and choosing the Mini Figure can be hours of fun, depending on how detailed you want to go with creating your perfect brick-based specimen.

And then there are the games themselves. They are lovely and varied. For the most part you are on your own, competing against other Minifigures but there are a couple of team games where you need to work together to win.

There are 60 minigames in total and there's a number that will have you tearing your hair out — but in a good way, as there's endless replayability factor here as you will always want to better than you did before, even if you did win or lose.

Some of my favourite games on show included a Guitar Hero clone, called Dance Off, where you have to hit the right notes that come down fast on the screen. Another reminded me of Rocket League, called Saucerlord, where you had to get a massive UFO into your colour space and there are a number of logic puzzles as well that require pin-point accuracy for you to win. And let's not get started about how tough Forklift Fumble was. I was dreaming about that game days after playing iy.

I really appreciate that LEGO has gone down this route with its mini games. If you win one, then you get a real sense of achievement. And if you lose, then you get right back on the horse and try again.

There is plenty of promise with LEGO Party and it is a game that has a fantastic replay factor. It is also cross-play, so platform agnostic — unlike our friendly little plumber.

While LEGO's IP isn't quite up their with Mario and his world yet, the fact that you can go to a land of pirates, head to a Ninjago themed area, go to space and otherwise shows that the scope is pretty endless and it's made this half term one to remember!

LEGO Party is out now on PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch (reviewed), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Steam.