Mario and Sonic at the Olympics for Nintendo WII - Ready, Set... GOOOOOO!!!!!

Mario and Sonic at the Olympics is a great little sports game for the Nintendo WII starring, as you might have gathered, Mario, Sonic, and a range of other video game characters who've appeared in their games.  The setting is - wait for it - the Olympics (the China 2008 to be precise, not that it matters). 


About the Game...

The first thing in MASATO's favour is that there are plenty of events.  Not many of them are available at first, but you unlock more by completing circuits - these are sets of three or more events, taken from across the disciplines.  You start with a set of Beginner circuits and can gain a couple more, eventually unlocking Intermediate and Advanced circuits which feature different (often tougher) events and more of them.

You can do a circuit or complete in a single event.  At first you have 100m sprint, 110m hurdles, hammer throw, trampolining, skeet shooting and swimming events open to you.  The controls are very well thought out, with a lot of variety between the events, but with many events starting the same way in terms of control to give some continuity.  This makes sense as the start of different types of race, for instance, is basically the same in real life as well.  Some events are more challenging than others, but the controls are never overly fussing or fiddly.  The level of challenge provided by the AI players isn't that high, though it can seem to be at first - or on events that you just never seem to be quite able to get the hang of!

There are characters to choose from, each with their own stats and speciality.  The characters are grouped into four sets - Power (Bowser etc), Speed (Sonic etc), All-Rounder (Luigi etc) and Skill (Princess Peach etc).    You can play any event with any character, but obviously different characters are more suited to different events than others.  You can also import your MII, which is a nice feature.

Some of the events are a bit too easy - the High jump, for instance, saw me beating the world record at my first attempt! - but most of them have the difficulty level set just right.  Some events I've yet to get anywhere near mastering - rowing, table tennis, skeet shooting and archery - some I mastered quite quickly - freestyle swimming, 100m sprint, high jump, fencing.  There are obviously some in between that I sometimes seem good at but not at other times.  Even playing MASATO as a single player game is a lot of fun, but of course where it comes into its own is as a multi-player game.  The only real problem with this is trying to make sure that your opponents are at a reasonable level of ability at the game before they take you on - winning against an unskilled opponent is after all not much fun!

With a good number of events to choose from though, including some fun "Dream Races", the first of which is essentially Mario Kart but with the competitors running instead of driving karts (!), it'll be a long time before you've mastered all of them.  Obviously having someone who can give you a good challenge on at least some of the events will be a major asset in terms of this game's longevity!


Aesthetics

The graphics are nice enough, well animated and suitably cartoony.  The well-known WII graphical style suits this game perfectly, so the fact that the visuals are not as impressive as other systems can manage is no problem at all here.  Each character has their own way of doing things depending on their strengths and weaknesses - for instance the strong characters only need to use one hand to do the hammer throw whereas all the others need both - and every character has their own animations when they're happy / disappointed with their performance. 

The music is nice enough, though it tends to muffle the speech sometimes - each character says different things in reaction to their performance, too.  Princess Peach is sickeningly gushing but in quite a funny way; Tails really annoyed me with his childish "I can do it!" and "I did it!" cries.  Could just be me being old and cynical, I suppose.  Sadly your MII doesn't say anything at all, just looks smug or sad.


Other Features

There are some mini-games too for opening up the gallery feature, where you can learn interesting facts about the Olympics.  These include an impossible to control pinball-style game and the ever-popular "Whack-A-Mole" - poor moles.   To me these didn't add a great deal to the game overall, but they're a decent enough extra feature I guess.   Being able to submit your scores online seemed like a fun idea and you can compare your results to similar ones overseas, but some of the high scores are by people who have probably done nothing but play the game for a fortnight until they managed a perfect score, and some have quite obviously been hacked (don't ask me how, but I'm sure of it) - at any rate, don't expect to ever see your score in the world's Top 30! 

The circuits do also have another option - it's effectively like choosing to play a joker.  You can get double points for an event, but only if you finish in the top 3 - otherwise it's nil pois for you!  Choosing the right event - and then performing well enough at that event - can make all the difference between first place and... well, anything between second and last - especially in the circuits with only 3 events.  I found this to be a good additional feature to the basic game.


Negative Aspects

Though you have the circuits, I would have dearly loved to see more multiple-event features, particularly with a larger number of events (it is possible, though I doubt it, that these exist but I still haven't unlocked them).  Also the animations between events can't be skipped until a certain point is reached - sure they're cute / funny at first, but after I've seen them a couple of times, I'd much rather get on to playing the next event or trying that event again than watching Shadow moodily grumble about not winning again. 


Burn Those Calories!

MASATO won't make you thin overnight exactly, but it certainly burns more calories than most games, even on the WII.  Depending on the events you'll be doing a lot of moving - it also depends on how enthusiastically you play the game, of course, but most events are difficult to play in a restrained manner!  The 100m sprint is ten seconds of pure madness, and you'll feel exhausted afterwards - when you've unlocked the 4-100m sprint relay, I challenge you to play it five times in a row with no rest in between (let me know if you actually manage this).  You have to win each time to beat my challenge, btw.  Anyway, it's a good game in its own right, but it's also among the most physically demanding WII games I've played yet - not quite as tiring as playing boxing on WII Sports for a prolonged period, but not far off it.  (Because of the hectic nature of the events I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to older ones or those with weak hearts though.)

The game does advise you to have a break every 15 minutes or so.

Overall Verdict

Mario and Sonic at the Olympics is a fine game, almost worth 5 stars though I find the delays between games annoying enough to award it 4 instead.  Yes, despite the fact that having a breather may not be a bad thing!  Still, as a single-player game it's good, and it's far better as a multi-player game; if you're looking for a party game, this is a great choice.  It makes good use of the Wiimote and nunchuck, with a range of skills needed to effectively play all the events.  Unlocking the extra events and circuits is paced quite well - you don't access everything too quickly - which encourages you to keep playing the single-player mode.

Finally, unlike like most video games you'll even be turning into an Olympian rather than a couch potato playing it!  This is exactly the sort of game that will make people want to own a Nintendo WII.


Other Sports Games for the Nintendo WII

WII Sports
Big Beach Party Sports