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Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games USA WiI-BiOSHOCK
English | Platform: Wii | Release: November 15, 2011 | Publisher: SEGA | Developer: SEGA | 4.32 GB
Genre: Sports




Aswere walking into the Tower of London, theyre helping out the Queen(or a very good impersonator). Further on, past the hordes of touristspeering at the magnificent prison-fortress through their cameraviewfinder, theres a room full of seriously-suited business men and asharply-dressed athlete or two. Its the most incongruous places to showoff Mario & Sonic at the London Olympics we could have thought of.


Gettinghands-on with the games, its obvious the Wii version hasnt changedmuch from the version that sold a kajillion copies a couple of yearsback; the character line-up is identical, with four-player play andalmost all the events from the first game returning. The styling hasshifted to match the London background, which is thankfully more iconicto most gamers than the equivalent areas in Beijing were; Big Ben loomsin the background, the horses ride beneath the Greenwich Observatory andbadminton matches take place in the Wembley Arena.


There arejust four new events: horse-riding, canoeing, football and badminton.The equestrian event (horse-riding to you and me) is played extremelystraight and could have been pulled straight from Pippa Funnell;characters have to make their way atop a pony around a obstacle-riddledcourse in the shortest time possible. Canoeing is a two-player co-opgame, which is all about your teams rhythm ***8211; paddle together and youllzoom ahead. Badminton feels like a very light version of Mario Tennisor Virtua Tennis, with automatically-moving players wafting theirrackets at the shuttlecock. If a player messes up their shot theopponent has a chance to do a special smash move, which is normallyunstoppable. We didnt get to see the football, sadly.


However,merely because the older events have returned, that doesnt mean theyhavent changed. In particular, SEGA has again re-imagined a fewcompetitions as Dream Events ***8211; so the long jump has changed into asideways scrolling Mario party game (very much like Yoshis Island)where players must survive for as long as possible on a level withcollapsing clouds, giant Bullet Bills and each other to compete with.Similarly, the Dream discus is a Sonic Adventure tribute that consistsof players riding their discuses in aerial arenas and knocking eachother out of the way to get rings, which determine the winner.

Finally,we got hands-on with an early version of the 3DS build. This is muchmore single-player focused game that really takes advantage of all the3DS functions. We tried a medley of preview games, starting with Judo,where you must match buttons before your opponent does; simple, butnicely animated. Similarly straightforward, the 1000m Kayak singles hasyou rotating the circle pad as fast as dammit.


More interestingwas the balance beam, which uses the gyroscope. You have to eitherbalance or follow a path using just the gyroscope to perform yourathletes pivots and pirouettes, before building up enough power for aperfect dismount. The breast stroke was similarly neat, making you waitfor your characters face appear above the waves before you blow on themicrophone to make them breath. Finally, possibly the silliest eventever devised, the 20KM race walk has you moving the stylus in ametronomic rhythm to perform perfect bottom-wiggling.


So whilethe games arent exactly going to set hardcore gamers tongues wagging,at present it promises to be a decent enough tie-in for next yearsOlympics and its always good to see Mario and Sonic back


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