Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Comments by Ellie Gibson

Yep. Hell has frozen over.

I think it all looks like a bit of a laugh. Providing it doesnt get disaterously bad scores then i may well pick it up.

Never thought of track and field with a dance mat!

a 360 version of track and field would be great. not the other week i was playing virtua athlete 2k on the dreamcast with a few friends! simple but fun and very competative!

Couldn't be worse than the Athens game from the last Olympics.

And whilst another collection of sports-based minigames isn't that high on my wish list (well, until Wii Sports 2 is announced anyway...) I imagine if they inject the right amount of *fun* to make the events worth a repeated play and a suitable price tag (£19.99 or so) I might be convinced.

I just hope it's more Wii Sports than Wii Play.

This thread is in dire need of a spell checker! =P

Sonic not that fast, Mario not as good as jumping as Peach, madness.

Yep, here comes Nintendo's new age of casual games. We should enjoy Galaxy and Prime while they still make proper games.

"Those who have waited decades for our heroes to debut in the same game"

Was anyone really waiting though? Did anyone really care?

"Mario & Sonic might not be the game old skool platform fans were hoping for"

Who would think for a moment that a game with the title 'Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games' would be a platformer?

Who would think for a moment that a game with the title 'Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games' would be a platformer?

Nobody. She was clearly referring to what people would want for a first game with the two characters in it.

"new age of casual games." - when did people forget that Nintendo have sold hundreds of millions of video games, including over 40 million copies of the NES mario bros alone! Why are they, only now, considered "casual". They've all appealed to the masses.

Its the content that I'm referring to, not the sales.

It's all set up in a straightforward way that's simple enough for tiny children and muddle-headed ladies to use.

It's going to offer a casual multiplayer experience

I hope it's got some depth, I really do.

@ bengalibengali.

SEGA hold the Olympics 2008 licence, and i highly doubt it'll be used solely for this game, so you can probably expect an Olympics game for the 360.

I heard from a source of mine last week that Sega is putting shedloads of work into this, and that it's going to be very good indeed.

""new age of casual games." - when did people forget that Nintendo have sold hundreds of millions of video games, including over 40 million copies of the NES mario bros alone! Why are they, only now, considered "casual". They've all appealed to the masses."

+1

Is Tetris still 'casual', or is that now 'hardcore' because it was 18 years ago?

5/10?, as good as Blue Dragon then. This game screams casual, cash in, gimmick.

Probably get 8/10 from Eurogamer.

Will this work on my Mega Drive?

Will this work on my Mega Drive?

It just might if you have the SNES CD-ROM add-on!

Oh, wait..

I'd consider Wii Sports a casual gamer's game. If this turns out as good as it, count me in (YMMV etc.).

I'd call Tetris casual, but the term "casual game" is a term only really used nowadays. The novelty of games back in the day was enough to sell them, so they could make them as hard, as long, or as crap (sometimes) as they wanted. Then we saw people demanding more quality with games over the years.

But now it seems they are content with releasing more of these party style games, as long as they throw in the "novelty" of the wiimote and marketing the machine more and more to the masses, good for business of course, but bad for anyone looking for 30+ hours in a game. I'd like to have a fair share of both to be honest.

You can't blame 'em really, but it does look like we won't be seeing as many games with depth in the future, if they want to keep the majority happy, judging by some recent comments they have made already about "making games more fun and easier" etc.

As long as they throw in a good amount of decent games like Mario Galaxy and Metroid prime then I'll be happy

I'd imagine Konami are doing a new 'international track and field' game, same as they always do around the Olympics. In fact, I think they've already announced one for the DS...

loved athens game (alonh with rest of family!) so this should be good fun too.

After years of wanting gaming to be recognized by the masses i've realised that i want them all to go away again. I was wrong, i admit it, make it stop.

After years of wanting gaming to be recognized by the masses i've realised that i want them all to go away again. I was wrong, i admit it, make it stop.

LOL

how much jiggling did you undergo ellie ?

All I can say about this game is

"Sega of Europe"

:(


I really wish anybody but SoE was developing this. :/

This should be good as long as the people who did Sonic and the Secret Rings aren't involved. Such a shit game.

"All I can say about hits game is

"Sega of Europe"

:(


I really wish wish anybody but SoE was developing this"

Yup, I hate the way they churn out rubbish like Football Manager, SEGA Rally and Medieval II: Total War. Rubbish the lot of it.

@Caimbeul

"I think it all looks like a bit of a laugh. Providing it doesnt get disaterously bad scores then i may well pick it up.

Never thought of track and field with a dance mat!

a 360 version of track and field would be great."

Congrats! :)

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/t/tracka...

Still the best! (I know, I know, it's not a *true* 360 version, but still...)

SEGA Europe aren't developing the game, they're publishing it ( in Europe ). I think it's being published by Nintendo in Japan.

Anyway, like Angrydarren said, SEGA's European development teams have released some good games.

Gotta say, this game looks and sounds bloody awful.

has this thing an online mode ? rankings ?

Ooh! I'm so not getting this game!

Sure Sonic is meant to be faster than Mario, but try and think of it realistically; (Yes, I said TRY). Sonic in most of his games has much slower acceleration than Mario, he takes an absolute age to get his ass moving. When he does, he's bloody quick.
People seem to think Mario wouldn't stand a chance against Sonic. But you forget that Sonic jumps like a retard. In Sonic games, he can never stop properly, he always runs into spikes that ruin your fun, and his jumping is atrocious. That's why I always preferred Mario platform games.
SUPER MARIO FOR THE WIN!!!!

Peteb - I think people have incredibly selective memories on these things. It's a bit like people saying music was much better in the 70s than today. They're generally remembering a lot more Pink Floyd than Bay City Rollers.

When I dig out an old mag from the late 80s or early 90s it's chock full of crap licenses and cheap cash-ins. Anyone remember Revolution X feat. Aerosmith? Jordan vs Bird? Iirc, that was a grand total of five minigames for £40. How about spending £40 on a MegaDrive version of Jeopardy?

The 'casual games' problem has now got so out of hand their projecting them backwards through time into the Golden Era! Noooooooooooooooooooo!

The novelty of games back in the day was enough to sell them

And it's enough to sell them now too, people just forgot and then Nintendo remembered!

I can see the potential with this, if the right amount of development time goes into it.

I can't see why people are bashing it, doesn't Super Smash Bros Melee sound like an utter shambles on paper? Didn't Mario Tennis on the N64 sound like it was going to be an utterly shit game on paper, cashing in on the characters.

Wouldn't Mario Kart sound like an utterly gash idea if it was released today without the previous incarnations?

I'm happy to give this the benefit of the doubt, it could turn out to be another SSBM or Mario Tennis (non GC version) yet.

All I want is an online mode for Wii tennis.

Oh look a flying pig...

Peteb - I think people have incredibly selective memories on these things. It's a bit like people saying music was much better in the 70s than today. They're generally remembering a lot more Pink Floyd than Bay City Rollers.

christ, your right, im getting old. im like an old guy who says, "don't make them like they used to"

All i'm saying is though that i hope Nintendo keeps making the epic games and not just concentrate on this party stuff. when all the "casual" gamers and mums and dads and granmas who bought the wii get bored of it, they're just left with the people who want decent games.

Im still an old git though.

Are you just talking about internal development teams? Virtua Fighter 5 would be a recent one that wasn't messed up.

Just one go makes your arms ache and women may want to consider investing in a sports bra.

This review is useless without slow motion, high definition videos.

The biggest disappointment about this, for me, is that it's set in the 'real' world. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned and naive, even childish, but I love the bright, colourful, impossible worlds of older games ... I want ridiculously blue skies, fluffy white clouds you can walk on, hills with cute eyes, platforms suspended in mid-air, enemies that make no sense and strange and wonderful power-ups ... I want that sense of fantastic style that older games gave us. These days I don't often feel delighted with the worlds games are set in, and that makes me a little sad.

that is a very good point.

that pic of bowser throwing the hammer in the actual olympic stadium looks just weird. two worlds colliding that should never meet...

one of the reasons i love the mario games is their hyper-real colours and imaginative cartoony landscapes. toadstool tour on cube was ace for this.

it'd be like mario in grand theft auto or something.

still, as long as it's fun for a couple of hours with some mates, i'll get it....