Gamertell

Title: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
Price:$34.99
System(s): DS
Release Date: 1/22/08
Publisher (Developer):Sega (Sega and Nintendo)
ESRB Rating: “E” for Everyone
Pros: It looks nice. The dream events are fun. Intuitive controls.
Cons: Basically a mini-game collection. Lacks Wi-Fi multiplayer.
Overall Score: 5/10

Mario & Sonic at the Olympics game is essentially a glorified mini-game collection with famous characters from the two series tossed in. It looks pretty, but many of the events just aren’t any fun. There is also no real motivation to keep playing after initially sampling each event. If anything, more effort should have been put into making this a multiplayer, party title. It seems like a natural for that, what with the competitive spirit behind it all. Sadly, this avenue was not pursued. The resulting game leaves you broke and unfulfilled.

The events have both good and bad points. There are 16 main events in Mario & Sonic, all of which are varying degrees of disappointing. The stylus controls are easy to master, so after playing an event two or three times you’ll likely have perfected it and be able to get the gold each time. The six Dream Events are really the best part of the game, as they are assorted events with Super Mario or Sonic twists, like power ups, super powers and items. All of the events in the game should have been like the Dream ones. It would have made for a much more interesting game.

The multiplayer and Wi-Fi are really the saddest parts in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. It does support single cart multiplayer, which is a plus. However the matches also somehow seem to go by far too quickly. Perhaps if multiplayer Wi-Fi had been included, this game could have redeemed. The only Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection feature is the ability to submit and share your high scores with everyone else. You don’t get any sort of kudos for sharing, just the pride of knowing you did it.

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games definitely isn’t the mini-game collection to get. Its a shame, because it looks gorgeous. All of the characters look incredible and everything is bright and vibrant. Perhaps if Sega and Nintendo had been a bit more imaginative and drawn more from the series’ sources when creating all of the events. It could have been Mario & Sonic at the Mushroom Kingdom Olympics! But it isn’t. If you’re curious, rent it from Gamefly.