Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games

THE BAD:
Motion controls can be very unresponsive; events can be quite similar and when you play for long periods of time, all seem to roll together, despite change in visuals and oh so slight change in controls; the characters play way too similar to one another, despite being in different ability classes to one another; fantasy equivalents of real events are not all that great either, and are just there for the hell of it; missions in events are in the mix simply to drag the game on even more; to top it all off, it's boring!

SUMMARY:
Detailed Summary:
Many say that Sonic and Mario, when they are finally together in a game, would be involved in this epic showdown with special powers and loads of beating the hell out of each other. Everyone expected that, or just some platforming game like the original Mario and Sonic games, or at least the older 3D games, with boss fights being against...each other! Maybe even some good old fashioned arcade action. But no, fact is, the two companies, Nintendo and Sega, trashed creativity, enthusiasm and gameplay mechanics 4 years ago, and only gave 2 craps for money. Instead of this epic showdown, make way for...the Olympics! I smell cash cow...

So anyway, the basic "story" is that Mario and Sonic, along with their mates, relatives and arch enemies, compete against each other in the 2008 Olympic Games, at Beijing, all for glory for one franchise and character. That's...kind of the only reason why they would be at the Beijing stadium for the 2008 Olympics.

So after this sweet introduction showing some Olympic introduction ceremony, which has some of the best graphics you'll see on the Wii for quite some time, well...really, you've just experienced the best part of the game. Believe it or not, the two companies cared so much for just money, that it truly shows. The game sports some nice visuals, but very bland and horrible gameplay and by far some of the worst controls I have ever encountered, especially the motion controls. To top it off, I have literally fallen asleep ten minutes into the gameplay portion of the game, ultimately screwing me over as you have to pay attention to everything in the game, or you'll probably end up losing. But how can you pay attention? Yeah, there's nice visuals, but big whup! The gameplay is boring as all hell! Honestly, this is nothing but a huge cash cow, made for the sole intent of making money instead of actually providing the consumer with a reason as to buy the game other than the visuals and the fact that Mario and Sonic are together.

Graphics: 5/5
Well, at least this game gets the graphics right on. The style in which the graphics are presented in, is suiting to both Mario and Sonic, whilst looking very good altogether. They're colorful and energetic looking, enough to make you appreciate it. The dirt actually looks like dirt, the holes in the dirt after jumping onto it during the long jump event looks real enough, and the water actually looks and feels like water. The character models themselves have this refined feel to them as well. Obviously, the developers spent a long time creating these models and environments and stadium, they also put a whole heap of effort into making this opening scene, because it actually looks quite realistic (well, as far as a humanoid hedgehog, his human-like animal gang and a dinosaur goes). This game also doesn't lag a whole lot. The animations are quite fluent actually. And this is when you have 8 people on the track and field at once. Quite surprising. Normally, it would lag. But it doesn't. Just...wow.

Honestly, though, this is the only huge redeeming factor in the game. Everything else fails.

Sound: 4/5
...or not. Music, I do not care for, there isn't a whole lot of it. The small amounts are, at least, tolerable. Nothing worth jumping up and down in excitement, or throwing your Wiimote on the ground and flashing middle fingers at it in frustration. Characters' voices are still the same as you would come to expect from the Mario and Sonic games. They're the more refined versions of their voices from Mario Party and Shadow The Hedgehog, not much to say about Mario gang's voices as they're still as good as ever, albeit a little repetitive after some time. However, Sonic voices, still as bad as what was from Shadow The Hedgehog, but hey, you can't expect much in terms of voice acting from 4Kids, outside of improvement, which there's no sign of. Since voice acting doesn't actually matter all that much in this game, I won't be too harsh on this matter. There's more important things to worry about aside from limited, average music and voice acting talents ranging from alright to good.

Control: 1.5/5
Such as THIS!!! What's the one thing about games that's very important, aside from how the game plays? How to get characters to do what is expected out of them, whether it be movement, jumping, swimming or whatever. If a game manages to screw this up badly, it might as well just keep trying to refine and refine until it finally gets itself done right.

You heard that right Nintendo and Sega? Refine the controls, not screw it up and make it damn near impossible to control and play!

It's alright to try and make it challenging to compensate for short, boring gameplay elements, but it's not alright to make them so horribly unresponsive, especially with the motion controls. I wouldn't have that much of a problem, but since the Wiimote + Nunchuck controller requires motion to be oh so perfect, if you bugger up with motion control developing and creating, you buggered up the control of the entire game. You cannot rely on buttons, as without the motion, nothing really happens. In some events, it's not that crucial (trampoline event, for example), but in many other events, you're screwed if you can't get the motion working the way you want it, and the way it's designed, you'll either throw the Wiimote to the ground and either smash something or flash middle fingers to the TV, or randomly, in frustration, flailing the Wiimote and nunchuck in hopes of actually moving your character, and odds are, it might work better. But either way, the motion controls are flawed.

However, the button controls are actually responsive, thus saving Control from getting a 0, and only giving it a 1.5. The buttons are used mainly to recover stamina, jump, throw objects and stab opponents (in fencing), but at least these will respond. If only the motion controls would work this well, it would be so much better.

Gameplay: 2/10
At first, I thought these mini-games, coupled off with terrible controls, were going to suck. Guess what? I was right. How much they sucked, I was right about too. These events are poor at best. As long as you can get your Wiimote to respond properly, this game will play fully.

Basically, all this game is, is you moving your arms like a jackass while the characters move for you, whether it be running or swimming. Pressing a button will have them jump or recover stamina, and at certain times, get a routine or action to work for you. You can also do a bit of archery like Link from The Legend Of Zelda series does, only it's a lot worse off than that. After pulling your Wiimote back, you have your nunchuck and Wiimote to align at two points, and then you somehow fire. However, you have wind distance to cope with, so you really have to concentrate on where you aim that arrow. If you miss, you lose. If you score low, you lose. If you get it in the middle, you may win. I would explain more, but the game plays all the same, maybe some slight variation here and there, the same mundane crap. If you think it's bad enough doing it the first time, here's a real disappointing moment, they expect you to do events three times before you can get your final result and see if you win, even though it's inevitable the CPU beats you badly unless you're really skilled at the game, so that's two more times you have to do the event. Being asked to do this once, it's boring, but three times, and you're basically asking for me to fall asleep, or simply turn off the Wii, take the disc out, and return the game to wherever I bought it from and trade it in for a much better game, unless you're expected to play this game as a whole to review it, like I did.

Mission Mode in this game always yells out to me in some primitive language "I make the game seem professional". Uh, no. You make it seem more dragged out and even more boring. See, Mission Mode or whatever its called is nothing but doing events while adhering to certain conditions, such as "parry the rapier x amount of times" or "finish track in x seconds" or "get x amount of perfect routines on the trampoline", etc, etc, whilst at least getting a Bronze Medal.

Also, you can unlock events. Sounds like this game really wants to drag the boring crudfest on.

Adding onto that, this game has difficulty levels, but again, it just shouts out "I'm here to make this seem professional", when it feels more like "I'm here to waste time", because that's what it really is. There's difficulty levels like Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert, but it really just drags the game on, having to play all the difficulty modes. It's like repeating the boring, mundane games three more times, only the AI gets smarter as you repeat the game, or in this case, everything just seems a lot harder.

Seriously, what the heck...this game plays as horribly as it controls motion-wise. Ugh.

Replay Value: 1/5
This game seriously puts you to sleep the first time, so once you're done with this garbage, you may as well throw it in the bin, sell it or trade it in for a much better game. I was so put off by the horrible controls and boring, motion reliant gameplay within ten minutes, I don't know why I would even consider finishing it, let alone play after finishing it. There's stuff to unlock, but if you didn't like it the first time, then why waste time unlocking what you can in a second playthrough? Honestly, what the heck...

Overall: 10/30
This game, in my opinion, did very, very poorly. Quite possibly one of the worst games I've played on the Wii, right next to Ninjabread Man, another abomination to the system. And you know what the worst part is? There is absolutely no way this game can get any better. I mean, there's the motion controls to consider, but if the companies scrapped the whole money-grabbing "put Mario and Sonic in the Olympics together" thing and instead, have some epic showdown and platforming gameplay between the two like what Sega did with Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, I would be satisfied, and it would be a whole lot better. Honestly, the only worthwhile things about the game would be graphics and sound, but since the gameplay and controls are buggered beyond all belief, there's no point in buying the game. So if you see this game, avoid it like the plague, or suffer!

Jak's Rating System: 10/30
Neoseeker's Rating System: 1.5/5