10 Ridiculous Design Decisions In Video Games

2. The Microphone Mini-Games - Mario Party

Mario Party 6 introduced a most bizarre - and, thankfully, short-lived - new mechanic to the series, with players able to plug a microphone peripheral into the GameCube in order to play a number of mic-specific mini-games requiring them to use their voice and, er, blow on the mic.

Unfortunately the mic was more a chintzy, desperate gimmick than it was a neat accoutrement to the core party experience, because no matter how hard Nintendo tried, there just isn't much fun about speaking the number of a dice roll aloud and hoping that it might influence the dice roll.

The mic returned for Mario Party 7 and also Mario Party DS - the latter of which used the DS' in-built mic - but the results were similarly listless, after which Nintendo thankfully ditched the idea entirely. Never again, please.