After the release of the politically-driven and arena-based gameplay of Hail to the Chimp in 2008, Disney Interactive Studios acquired Chicago's Wideload Games. And the first product of their combined efforts is the original IP, Disney Guilty Party.

In Guilty Party, up to four gamers (or teams) can play cooperatively or competitively to crack a series of cases and discover whodunit through clue collection that leads to four primary physical traits. It's a fun, casual experience designed for the entire family, but not without its faults.

The story of Guilty Party features the Dickens Detective Agency, a family of super sleuths who live under one roof in a mansion run by The Commodore. Lately, he's been challenged with a number of crimes (all of general audience caliber, nothing gruesome) by the villainous Mr. Valentine. It's up to players to take control of the agency and solve the mysteries over a variety of fun locations.

In Story Mode, players always work cooperatively, taking turns in what plays out as a mystery very influenced by board games. Each player starts his or her turn with a limited number of tokens. These are used to move around the board, and also to activate mini-games that must be completed to unveil either physical clues or testimony from suspects.

Testimonies give players information that is either true or false, which can be determined with a lie detector. The most important information is height, weight, hair and gender, which is used to create sketches that point to a particular suspect. In early story elements, those clues must then be used to accuse and prove the guilt of a suspect. Later in the game, other clues, including alibis, must be used to prove all of the other suspects are innocent. It's a nice change-up in the game that keeps things fresh.

Working against the players, though, are two major time limits. The first is an hourglass that limits the player's turn. The second is an overall turn countdown. If players don't solve the case before it hits zero, the suspect will escape. Mr. Valentine also shows up between rounds to hinder the players by doing things like locking doors, turning off lights or changing the moods of suspects. Players get cards that can be played to help counteract some of these effects, though.

It's a great set-up, a fun board game like experience on Wii, and the cutscenes are genuinely funny in a family-friendly way that keeps it as enjoyable for the parents as for their children. It's also nice that players can choose individual difficulties to increase or decrease the challenge by member of the party.

The biggest problem, however, are the mini-games of Guilty Party. In the context of the game, most of them work well and actually serve to create some additional humor. One game to interrogate a suspect, for instance, is a staring contest where the player must use the Wii Remote to keep eyes fixed on a moving suspect.

Like many of the mini-games in Guilty Party, it's fun and works in context, but they aren't the type of games anyone would choose to go back and play on their own merits. And that's a shame, as the best mini-game driven titles need solid games that are enjoyable on their own. Disney Guilty Party doesn't have them, and worse yet, it features some that are downright bad. A co-op challenge that has players putting boards over the leaking hull of the ship immediately comes to mind as one with horrible controls, lack of direction and an apparent urge to make that portion of the game downright unenjoyable.

Unfortunately, the competitive elements of Party Mode also have problems. In this mode, a whodunit is randomly generated based on difficulty and location. In this instance, players collect separate clues toward solving the same mystery. Working against one another, players actually get bluff mechanics to hide the true or false nature of their clues.

It's a nice idea, but players also choose the Mr. Valentine attacks for their opponents, and with a Knock-Out, Lock All Doors or Bank Heist card usually coming up in the choices, it's easy for a two-team game to end in a stalemate if house rules aren't implemented to avoid those cards. Ultimately, competitive multiplayer is a nice idea to extend the gameplay experience, but not implemented as well as it should be.

And that's the bottom line on Disney Guilty Party. There is plenty of fun to be found for families with the latest from Wideload Games. It's got charm, a fun story and great characters. It's hard not to love its board game feel and how it unfolds. But it has some problems in the core mechanics of certain game elements, and the mini-games that play a key role are mediocre, at best.

Final Score: C+