It's a battle that's been in the making for about fifteen years now, and it finally comes down to this: well, sort of, but not really. The real battle between these icons will come with Super Smash Bros. Brawl in just a couple months, but all the same, fans of these two franchises no-doubt drooled at the thought of them together at last. At least, until they heard it was a game about the Olympics -- being made by Sega. Nintendo helped Sega to stay on track, and while it isn't near what it could've been, it's not as horrible as you'd be led to believe at first. Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games is definitely a title that earns split opinions, as it will only appeal to certain types of gamers out there.
Ready to rumble...
From the moment the game is booted up, it blasts players with its top-notch introduction cutscene, which, being produced by Sega, looks and feels great. But then the actual game comes, and all of those expectations of sweet bullet-time javelin throws and epic sporting events dies down. What's left after the dust clears is, for the most, a mascot-infused waggle-fest, albeit one that's more enjoyable than most on the platform to date.
What's wrong with this picture?
The basic premise combines three different properties and mashes them all together: Mario, Sonic, and the Olympic Games (guess which one makes things feel awkward). Essentially, players will participate in sports ripped right from the Beijing Summer Olympics, competing as Mario and Sonic characters. Each sport is more or less a minigame that focuses on using the Wii remote in some special way. There are a wealth of them, but they mostly feel like stuff we've seen before on the Wii. The Triple Jump requires three flicks of the controller; the Hammer Throw is drastically similar to the cow-throwing game from Raving Rabbids; and my personal favorite (read: utterly infuriating), the 100-Meter Dash, is a shake-til-your-arms-fall-off example of poor Wii design. A few (like Archery) show some potential but still end up feeling a bit too gimmicky for their own good.
At least the characters' personalities come through.
There's a reason that the game pauses after every few events to tell players to take a break: it tires one out far quicker than it should. Excited members of the younger audience who lean on the more casual side of gaming will probably delight in exerting their abundance of childlike energy into drumrolling like a psychopath, but older gamers may not appreciate the shoehorned shimmy-shaking so much.
Aside from playing single matches, there is a mission mode to tackle (but good luck beating Sonic in a race as Mario, as I was left in utter defeat), some cheesy minigames tacked on to an "educational" mode about the Olympic games, and plenty of medals, emblems, and trophies to collect for those perfectionists -- baubles that serve no worthwhile purpose. Records in events are uploaded to the WiFi Connection so players can compare their scores to the highest-ranked in the world, though. It would have been nice to see some actual online play included, however.
I know, Wario, it's tough being stuck in mediocre minigames...
In order to unlock a good number of the events, players will have to tirelessly compete in the circuits, some of the latter which seem near impossible to beat as the AI characters are inconsistently awful at some events but masters of others. This tends to be Mario and Sonic's greatest problem: inconsistency. Some of the minigames are overly tiring, which is a serious problem when you can perform the same motions every time and come in practically any place. Some times the motions for the Triple Jump or Javelin Throw would feel over or underpowered despite the motion with the Wii remote being approximately the same. And nevermind the dashing events -- shake your hands all you want, but it seems to be very picky on how to run at max speed, even when following the cues from the explanation menu.
Blaze kicks it up a notch in the dream-version of ping-pong.
Mario and Sonic adds in a few spiced up events to make things more "Mario-Sport-esque," and it's a shame that this was only implemented with a handful, as it helps to keep some of the events at least a little more crazy. For the most part, the events feel lacking of life, which is too bad, since the characters participating in them are so full of personality. The drama of the Olympics is lost on the relative lack of epic atmosphere -- despite the game's efforts, it only truly achieves this feeling in the cinematic intro.
Speaking of atmosphere, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games does sport some flashy presentation despite not achieving all it sets out to. While it may come off as a little too plain at times, the menus are extremely slick and well organized, and the graphical presentation is one of the best on the console. The characters look smooth, they animate fluidly, and shimmer with their respective charm. Granted, that charm can be laid on too thick at times, especially in events with extremely repetitive voice clips. It may not add too much to the gameplay, but it's nice to see a 3rd party developer taking some time to at least make the package look and feel a little more polished than is adequate.
At least they've settled their differences, right?
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