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A solid first team-up, but nothing spectacular.

I'll imagine this isn't quite the pairing that fans of both the Sonic and Mario franchises were expecting back in the heyday of late 80's and early 90's. However, Mario And Sonic At The Olympic Games does make a solid party title for the Nintendo Wii, and should hold some people over until Sonic makes his next appearance in Smash Bros.

You get a well rounded roster composed of 8 Sonic characters and 8 Mario characters, all taken from the more popular guys that populate both universes. There are no unlockables, unfortunately, but the beginning roster is solid enough. Each character has its own particular set of stats, and they are all divided up between different abilities, such as Speed, Power, Skill, and All-Around. However, while playing, I didn't notice any difference when it came to certain events and the characters particular abilities. Sonic doesn't seem to naturally run faster than Mario, and Bowser can't toss the hammer any harder than Peach.

It's been quite some time since I've played any kind of Track and Field style game (probably since the Dreamcast days), but I have a pretty good memory of what they were all about.

Button mashing.

Of course, now that this style of game has made its way onto the Wii that equates into controller shaking. Violent controller shaking to be exact.

Olympic Games is also the most realistic of the Nintendo sports titles. Outside of 4 fantasy style events that represent a sports style similar to what we've seen from Mario Sports before, this game holds pretty true to its licensed material. You get a variety of events split up into different groups, ranging from the 100 Meter Dash to Table Tennis, with a decent variety mixed in. Everything is controlled with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk accessory; with some events requiring the use of both.

Certain events do a good job of emulating what's occurring on screen, such as the running sections. You'll mimic the arm pumping of your runner, alternating with the Wii Remote and the nunchuk, attempting to blast ahead of your competition. Other events, like the Hammer Throw, are a little more basic and just require you to spin the control around to hit a top speed, and clicking the B-button to release.

The controls themselves are well done, but the descriptions before events end up a little vague at times. This is unfortunate, because the game does present a pick up and play style on the surface, but without some heavy explanation you won't be getting the whole family together for some simple gaming action unless they're already familiar with how these games tend to work.

Olympic Games does a competent job in the visual department as well, but the character renders of the Mario crowd can't hold a candle to what we've seen in recent releases like Galaxy, and even the Sonic stuff seems a bit sub-par when compared to his last few console entries. The character animations are solid though, and there are no real issues that I came across while playing.

Mario And Sonic At The Olympic Games is a lot of fun to play when you get a full group together, as long as you can get everyone over the initial learning curve. As a stand-alone single player game it holds up all right but quickly loses steam as you get the hang of every event and roll right over your competition in every game. There's the option of online leaderboards where you can compare your best events with other friends, but outside of that you won't find much to keep you interested for very long outside of group games.