Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Nintendo DS) Review

Many of you will surely remember a time when the very idea of a single console playing host to both Sonic and Mario titles seemed ludicrous, let alone a single game featuring both characters. And yet, here we are! Of course, the novelty of such a momentous event has somewhat worn off following several months of screenshots, trailers, and eventually the release of the Wii version of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games last November. But maybe that's a good thing. After all, M&SatOG is ultimately a mini-game fuelled sports title, and one that we should begin by noting borrows next to nothing from either of the franchises after which it is named, other than the characters themselves. So, shall we go ahead get down to the nitty-gritty?

The game itself consists of sixteen standard Olympic Events and eight Dream Events (more on those later). Some are available from the get-go, whilst others can be unlocked gradually by winning medals and the like. Each event can be played on its own using any of the sixteen playable characters (eight from the Mushroom Kingdom, and eight from... Mobius, yes, we went there). Multiple events are also combined to create Circuits, which force players to play through each event consecutively, earning points as they go. Each character also has access to six unique missions, which generally task the player with completing a particular task within one of the aforementioned events. For example: jumping at least 15m with a jump angle of 50 degrees in the Triple Jump event.

That's not to say that none of the events are any good, though. Generally speaking, the Dream Events are more enjoyable (or at least more inventive) than their standard counterparts. Dream Shooting, for example, pits you against swarms of enemies in an on-rails, first-person shooter scenario, rather than the simple clay pigeon shooting that constitutes the classic Shooting Event. Aiming for both is handled with the Stylus, whilst firing is initiated with the L and R buttons; it's accurate, works well, and most importantly, its fun. The Dream Race event is even wackier (Mario Kart items, anyone?), but ultimately suffers from clunky Sonic R-esque on-foot racing controls and everyone's favourite 'manic, hand-cramp inducing touch-screen scribbling'. Ultimately, though, even the cream of the crop won't keep you entertained for an undue length of time.

Thankfully wireless multiplayer helps kick things up a notch, although options are somewhat limited compared to the Wii version. Players can take participate in both single- and multi-card link-ups, but not online matches unfortunately. Whilst the game is generally more enjoyable with a few friends along for the ride, a significant number of events don't really lend themselves particularly well to such an endeavour. For example, events like Long Jump, Trampoline, and Archery are played in isolation, only ever communicating with others to transmit scores. Speaking of which, it is possible to upload your results data to a series of online leaderboards, but the system for doing so is fatally flawed because results for each event must be uploaded/downloaded individually. There's no option to synchronise all records in one swoop, meaning the feature probably won't get used nearly as much as the developers would have liked.