Mario and Sonic unite at long last to prove once and for all who's the best - though really, all you need is practice.
Event after event you will find yourself performing the same move over and over with perhaps only the button you press to throw the Javelin/Hammer/jump/jump over hurdle varying. In some events you will be required to press both A and B, in others just B - for a new player it all gets very confusing. After a while however, you will discover the easiest way for you and simply win every event that uses a similar control scheme - that's almost all of them.
Furthermore, it won't take long before your arms ache like you never thought possible - especially after a few 400m races! Yes, that "It's time to take a break" message may come up often, but i think it needs to if you are to avoid spending the next 3 weeks with your arm in a sling... even more frustrating is that after all your hard work you discover the game has not recognised the movement which happens a lot more than normal Wii games.
On the other hand, you can't deny this game has huge variety. With 16 characters each with their own abilities reinforced by a mixture of events from athletics (track and field) to gymnastics, swimming, rowing, fencing, table tennis - the list goes on!
Then there's our traditional Mario battle with items to your aid. They call them the "Dream events". In these events you can launch items like the green shells we all know and love with a good helping of lightning on top. Of course, we can't not have a Sonic representative, so the Chaos Emerald is at your command too. These events are a great twist to your regular ones.
The game also offers several emblems for you to collect such as playing the game so many times, committing a foul (Yes, an award for doing something wrong) and obtaining new records.
The game has preset Olympic Records and World Records. Although they can't be beaten in multiplayer and the game shouts "New Olympic/World Record!" for some strange reason, they do not update in multiplayer. In fact they only update in single player. As this game has much more multiplayer value than single, it seems a waste of a feature. Basically, you have to discover you can do it, then go do it alone in single player.
However, once you obtain these records you can connect to the internet and download the scores from across the world to see how you score to your fellow players. It's surprising how close those records are!
As i mentioned previously, this game has excellent multiplayer value. In single player the game become rather dull, rather quickly. The computers will soon be a piece of cake to defeat and it won't take long before your replay consists of you alone crossing the line and fading before anyone else appears. However in multiplayer you can continue to your heart's content (until your arm drops off at least). Unfortunately, again, unless your opponent consistently gives close battles, this again becomes rather dull. Bring along a heap of players to get the party started!
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games is a game worth buying. Your arms might be hanging ay your ankles by the time you finally stop playing but look on the bright side, you're 10 times fitter now! It's not the best game in control schemes but it scores high on it's incredible variety and multiplayer value.