So I’ve done a competition and a feature about Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games so now it’s time for the review. For the first time the fat plumber and the hedgehog have starred together in a game but what’s it like? Have their egos ruined it? Have they made sweet music together? Well, a bit of both. There’s some good and some indifferent aspects of this game which I’m about to explain to you now.
Basically, this plays a lot like the sports games from back in the day such as Track and Field and Daley Thompson’s Decathlon, only with the use of the remote and Nunchuck to wave instead of breaking your old joystick by waggling it too much or bashing the buttons too hard.
The game’s a fusion of Sega and Nintendo presentation with the voices and music of a Sega game and a game structure similar to Mario Kart. Playing Circuit mode has you play in groups of three events and you can unlock new ones as you earn trophies for placing in the top three. As you unlock new classes and circuits, you also unlock new events you can play in free play mode if you fancy just diving into the game for a couple of minutes with a friend. Unfortunately, to unlock new events you have to play through the game in single player mode which, to be honest, is a bit pointless in this kind of game. Playing against another person is everything in a game such as this and the game only becomes truly enjoyable with friends.
In the game you have the usual track and field events, swimming, archery, skeet shooting, table tennis, fencing, trampolining, rowing and loads of others. Running usually involves shaking the nunchuck and remote as fast as you can to gain speed and then pressing a button to jump or flicking the remote skywards. Do it too hard and you’ll have too much power and foul or come last. It’s also worth mentioning that you can become genuinely tired from all that arm pumping and, especially in the hammer throw, could possibly do yourself a wrist injury or even punch yourself in the face.
There are also dream world events such as a Mario-Kart style race on foot and diving from way up high into a goldfish bowl.
There’s a mix of characters from both universes both good and evil and you can even play with your Mii or one of the celebrity ones you or someone else have made which you can download from the new Mii contest channel. Check it out it’s quite a lot of fun.
So to conclude this one’s bright and colourful and has tonnes of variety, but for someone reason just doesn’t hold my attention as much as Konami’s classic Track and Field game. Partly it’s to do with the pace of the game, having to skip past graphic sequences which are fine the first time but are just not needed when you just want to get to the next round. Also, there is no reason why you would really want to play this alone and it’s a real shame you can’t unlock new events at the same time as playing with others.
Also, Mario’s truly a victim of his own success this time around as surely everyone’s now playing Super Mario Galaxy over anything else out this week or even a fortnight ago on the Wii.
It’s good, but in this type of game where precision is key, waving a piece of kit about instead of pushing a button sometimes isn’t enough which can ultimately lead to frustrating gameplay at times.
It gets 6 out of 10 and before anyone complains, 5 is an average for me so anything above that is worth a look.
nice game