Review – Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Winter Games

Yes its back for a second ride of the pony, one of THE biggest selling games of all-time (yes, you read that right) – this time the biggest names in the business are bringing their fun to the slopes of Vancouver Canada for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

The second instalment of the Mario and Sonic games sees Sonic and Mario take to snow for the Winter Olympics, and for this review I’m going to do something that I might not do again that is review both versions. Wii and DS and place them in one review, their scores will be separate and then an overall score which will be an average.

Don’t worry about having to read wall upon wall of text either as I will be trying to keep it to the length of my normal reviews.

Well we’ll start off with the Wii version, now the idea is fairly standard, select your event; be it a normal winter event: skiing, snowboarding, etc. or the dream events kookier versions of the normal events which can be unlocked through playing Festival Mode.

The single player mode called Festival Mode is where you select one character and you play the Winter Olympics from the opening ceremony to the end which is roughly more than two weeks. Your goal is to reach the top and the only way you can do that is by gaining points by competing in events. The higher position you are the greater amount of points you get, this mode mixes training, with normal events and dream events as well as a boss character who will challenge you every couple of days. After each event you will be ranked on how well you did and if you picked up any emblems which is the games own achievements and then the system will deliver you points to spend in the shop to get logos, designs for you snowboard or skis, in-game music and some other stuff.

The control of the game was by using the wiimote and sometimes the nunchuck and they felt really responsive to me, it’s a shame that I never got round to actually using the balance board, and it’s probably for the best because I don’t do that great with it, there is a mode for it though if you want to use the balance board.

After I was finished with the Festival Mode, it was really over for me, I saw no reason to go back and play again; maybe if I had friends who didn’t live over 20 miles away and more nunchucks than I could say the multiplayer would hold me over for replay.

WII SCORE: 3.5

There’s multiplayer for another controller on the same console (this is needed to unlock a game which leads to an achievement, very tedious on the Xbox 360) but no online multiplayer, though this may be asking too much seeing the price and the amount you get on it.

The DS version has no “Festival Mode” but instead has a single player adventure mode dubbed “Adventure Tour” which sees Bowser and Dr. Eggman capture the World’s Snow Spirits in order to ruin the Winter Olympics, as Sonic and Mario arrive on the scene an escaped Snow Spirit called Frosty asks them to help and that’s where the game begins.

It gives us a simple trait of an RPG where you roam around the islands that you go to looking for items that will get you into events (such as skates for skating) which conveniently are in chests or get given to you by certain character. Once you beat an event mission it will give you a crystal which the spirits will use at ice walls that block your path to the rest of the island.

To accompany the fact that you can control both Mario and Sonic, Mario can use warp pipes and shrink where Sonic can use springs, and his spindash attack to knock through cracks in walls as well as knock down open bridges.

You can collect hearts from boxes or any interactive item to give you an extra retry if you fail a mission, run out of lives, run out of attempts. You can also get them from completing missions.

Every now and then throughout the game you’ll come to what can only be summed up as a Rival Battle, in which you compete in events against different characters in order to proceed onto the next stage or just continue through the world you’re on now. Each character used once; be it for a rival battle or a mini-game which unlocks your progress through the level, other character battles will unlock you a character for your party.

It’s a real shame that some of the characters are non-playable even for use on single player or multiplayer; the character models were there as you battle against them but it baffles me why they weren’t included on those modes.

The DS controls be it stylus or D-pad and buttons were good despite at certain points where the stylus refused to do much in the way of actually responding. Other than that I have no quarrels with it.

DS SCORE: 4.5

OVERALL SCORE	Overall, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games is an enjoyable game, whether it’s for the Wii or DS. The DS version seems to cater more to single player with its adventure mode and quick play options for when you’re out and about where as the Wii has its potential strength in its multiplayer.
		4.0

SW’S CRAZED FANBOY SCORE	“The Wii? THE WII? Who do they think we are children? How dare SEGA sully my memories of DreamCast brilliance by bringing in the plumber again! And whats with all these Olympic sports, why are the colours all the colours of ice and snow? Those colours are boring… I WANT HOT COLOURS NOW OR I CUT MYSELF! HOW DARE SEGA try and make money! They should be out of business by selling poular retro games for 5 people that don’t make any money so they can go out of business. THEY CLEARLY AREN’T TRYING!”
		0.0