Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

Hello. This is DPNorman and this is my review for Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games is as the title says. Mario characters meet Sonic characters in an Olympic-themed minigame collection. You can play as most of the prominent characters from the Mario and Sonic games, but not from other franchises such as the Zelda franchise or the Super Monkey Ball franchise. Most of the minigames are from real Olympic Events, but some are "Dream Events" in which you play games such as "Dream Race" and "Dream Platform" that are not real events and more resemble Mario Party type events.

The game starts off with excellent cinematic cutscenes showing and previewing your gameplay to come and the battles between the Nintendo and Sega characters. The presentation is well done and sucks the player into the game's atmosphere. The graphics are also pretty nice in comparison to most other wii games and it stands up to both Nintendo and Sega standards.

However the gameplay is quite bittersweet and that is the main reason why giving this game a score and truly evaluating this game is difficult. Some of the gameplay can be very fun, but some is quite frustrating and will put off some gamers. This is mainly because of the control. Because this is indeed a wii game, you must make use of the wii's waggle controls in every single game. This game is a prime example of a poor use of the wii design. The controls simply do not work as they should. This applies to most of the games, they suffer from control issues.

Often, games that should not need waggle controls still get them and it ruins the experience. A good example is the archery minigame, which requires you to aim by aligning two cursors on the screen. One cursor is controlled by the wii remote pointer while the other is controlled by the nunchuck. Although it would seem logical to you and me to use the thumbstick on the nunchuck, to the makers of this game that would perhaps make too much sense. Instead you waggle the nunchuck and the cursor goes the direction you waggle. This simply does not work. The concept of the controls is not well thought out and creates a poorly controlled game. This is not a specific example, as there are many instances of poor motion control in this game. Also, with the heavy emphasis on motion controls comes over-use, giving your arms quite the workout when you finish.

The events themselves can be fun. Some personal preferences of mine include Trampoline, 100m Swim, and the Dream Race event. Most events in this game are well thought out and fun. It is actually such a shame that the controls were as poor as they were because with better controls the game would be quite excellent. Indeed this game is amazing........in principal. But in practice, most of the games were not tested enough. What great potential this game had was wasted largely due to control issues. This game is a strange mix of fun and frustration.

There are other modes past the main game. The main game can be played both single and multiplayer. There are circuits and challenges and there is also a trivia mode. This obviously was a second thought though. It is not nearly up to par with the main game. In fact, between trivia questions you are forced to play minigames that do not relate to the Olympics.

Also there is an online option. However this option is terrible. Once again, it's a great idea, and we all want to play this game with other opponents online, but time and time again this game's principal outweighs its practice. Actually there is no real online gameplay at all. The online mode is nothing more than an online leaderboard. There is no option to play with or against anybody. This is unacceptable because this release was anticipated for a long time and a lot of people were wondering just what online functions would be included. In this game there is nothing worth your time.

In the end, the jury is still out about this game. On one hand, an excellent presentation with good graphics and mostly good games. On the other, the experience is hampered by issues with the actual gameplay and execution, most notably the controls.

I would love to tell you that this game is great. I want to be able to tell you that this game lives up to all the hype and deserves your purchase. Everything the developers came up with was perfect, but they failed to follow through and made a game without good enough gameplay. Don't get me wrong, some games are very good, but most of them leave something to be desired in the control department. I have to eventually make a decision about this game, so I have to advise you not to purchase this game off the bat. Instead, if you are interested, you should definitely rent it first, and try it out, then make the decision again.

This video game had great potential but failed to follow through on its promises. This game is a whole disc filled with missed opportunity, and remains not much more than decent in my book.

I give Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games a 5 out of 10.