We've had a chance to go hands-on with Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games every month since this July, so while this may in fact be our fourth preview of the game, it's still a first for many of us that didn't have a chance to see it originally. For whatever reason both myself and Matt Casamassina haven't had a chance to play the game - being in IGN LA can be both a blessing and a curse - so though it may have been old news to some at last week's Nintendo event in San Francisco, it was my first chance to give the game a fair shake.
The best way to describe Mario & Sonic would be to Wii-ify a classic game like Track & Field for the NES. The game revolves entirely around basic motions that equate to Olympic sports, so you'll be drumming the controllers up and down to sprint, mimicking different swimming strokes during competitive, lane-based water competitions, aiming the Wii-mote's IR during skeet shooting, or physically pulling the controller back and aiming with a combination of IR and tilt in archery. As a common theme throughout the game you'll find that the experience never gets too incredibly deep, but still remains to be pretty fun in that Wii Sports or classic Track & Field way.
Remember doing this with a cow? We do.
For my playthrough last week I had a chance to play the game in both single and multiplayer scenarios, ripping through just a few of the events in order to get a feel for how Mario & Sonic would play out. There's an overarching main mode to work off of, but for our hands-on session in San Francisco it was based more on a fully-unlocked version of the game, focused mainly on multiplayer, single-event play.
For the most part these events are amazingly basic. That isn't to say they aren't fun, but if you've been going mini-game crazy on Wii already with games like Wario Ware, Rayman, Mario Party, Wii Sports, or even Carnival Games you'll have already played many of these mini-game designs in an alternate form. That doesn't keep them from being well-made or intuitive, but it does take from that "wow" factor that comes with a new style of play.
Still, some of the events were pretty entertaining, and we're interested to see how deep the game can get as you progress through the multiple difficulty levels of each event. Archery, for example, had the bow and arrow control that I instantly envisioned when picturing a motion-controlled Zelda game, as you literally pinch the controller's A and B buttons, draw back to your ear, aim by tilting the nunchuk (your bow-holding lead hand) and aiming IR for a combination of actual angle and aiming, and then finally releasing your shot. At times the motion control on the nunchuk was a bit unresponsive, floating a little more than I expected when setting up a shot, but after a slight learning curve I could nail precise shots pretty easily. And event like this hasn't been done on Wii previously, so it was a fresh experience, and a fun one at that.
A few of the other events were a bit basic for my liking, but they at least had enough production value and general presentation to keep them from feeling like some sort of slap-together cash-out design. The relay races, for example, made basic use of controller drumming, but then changed it up a bit by locking your speed and letting you get ready for the motion-based hand-off of the baton. Slam down with the Wii-mote as you near the next runner in your team and you'll transfer control from one to the other, now pedaling again to gain the lead. This mode in particular could be played co-operative as well, dividing the four runners between multiple players, so it was fun ragging on my teammate after he blew a hand-off, or having him hand out verbal abuse while I attempted to drum up to full speed as we sat comfortably in last place. If you're looking for the Wii Sports experience with a bit more diversity and presentation, Mario & Sonic will deliver.
And though the game is obviously geared toward that younger, "family play" Wii audience it still has some intelligent design backing it. You'll be able to choose from different Mario and Sonic franchise characters, each of which are divided into categories based on their speed, technique, and power. If you want a pure speed team, select characters like Sonic and Yoshi. Need power instead? Go with a character like Knuckles instead. As an added bonus - one that is in need of serious praise, as it's good to see developers getting with the program - you can also import Miis from your console to battle it out against the Nintendo and SEGA icons. Rest assured Mii Bozie and Casamassina will be pitting their skills against Mario and Sonic as soon as we get the game in-office.
On the visual side Mario & Sonic is pretty beautiful game to look at, as most of the event gameplay is simple, and can be shown off in cinematic fashion. The design still could have gone a bit farther, as you don't get too many bullet time moments or epic, swinging cameras as much as we'd like, but it's visually pleasing overall, and runs at an easy 30 frames per second throughout. Little additional animations like the ability to pump up the crowd with Wii motion should add to the fun for Wii's younger crowd, and hardcore gamers will be happy with SEGA's included 16:9 and 480p support.
We'll still need to put more time into Mario & Sonic to determine if it's really worth the cash, but from what we've played of it this week it's a far more entertaining game than we previously thought. It doesn't have a ton of depth, but the mini-games are still fun to play, even if we've seen many of them before in previous Wii designs. The archery event alone was a fun experience, as it truly used the Wii remote in a different way than we've seen anywhere else, so if there are more events in the game of that caliber Mario & Sonic could end up being a great choice for the younger crowd.
We'll have more on Mario & Sonic as we near its release, including direct-feed video and of course our final review. Until then, be sure to check out our event media in the gallery below, as we'll be updating throughout the day.
