Techtite's Wii Reviews

"What could've been Wii Sports in overdrive just might be the worst Wii Sports knockoff of all time."

---from the review

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Sidebar :

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Pros: A Wii Sports clone which stars all the Sonic lead stars, all the Mario lead stars, and even allows you to compete with them alongside your "Mii".

Cons: Stays so true to the rules of the "real" Olympic games that even an Olympian would find little "fun" in a game that is halfway "really tough" and halfway "not worth it at all."

No Sidebar comments for this review. Yet...

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Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted!

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Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games

Click picture to order this game (Nintendo Wii)

A Techtite Review

There's no reason to beat around the bush here: this has to be the biggest missed opportunity in game history. Think of it: someone got permission to make a "Wii Sports" clone, of the Olympics. It was a game under the Sega logo, so they could use Sonic the Hedgehog game characters. They got permission from Nintendo, to add Mario game characters(!). They even added an option to play as your own Mii likeness, so your Miis can compete in events with Mario and Sonic. Dare one ask, in their worst nightmares, what could possibly go wrong here?

Perhaps that's the problem with any game that's given too many licenses: the designers forget creative license. Okay, yeah; you're making an Olympic game. Yet it's an Olympic game geared for kids. This isn't "Bruce Jenner  and Mary Lou Retton at the Olympic Games." It's an "Olympics" starring talking animals. So on the one hand you have a game whose characters appeal to little tykes; on the other hand you have a game that is so "true" to the Olympics, it's difficulty curve is often quite unnerving. Even if the idea was to offer a "realistic" Olympic game, you'd expect one without 1) computer opponents who seemingly cheat, 2) no way to avoid these computer opponents, even with four human players playing with you, and 3) a control scheme that is often sluggish, and, honestly put, crap.

Let's talk more about the computer opponents. Even if you play with three friends, you still have to compete, per Olympic game rules, with as many computer opponents that are needed for a "real" Olympic event. These opponents leave no mercy for a newcomer to this game. Furthermore; their superior skills often make little sense. Could Bowser actually beat Princess Daisy in gymnastics? It doesn't matter; You will lose, over and over, to the point that you'll often wonder if they cheated. After all; could Princess Peach actually win a race against Sonic?

It's not that the game is simply challenging; I can take challenging. Just don't try and tell me that a game with shoddy controls and poorly constructed mini-games constitutes "added difficulty." Take the Skeet Shoot competition, as one example. Just point and shoot, right? Wrong. You are first given a reflexes challenge, where you must click the mouse at the exact time, to get a "normal" sized target sight. Click at the wrong time and you get a target sight for your gun so small, many kids with smaller TV sets might not even be able to see it. There's a difference between an element to the game that is challenging, and an element to the game that makes the game "harder," by making the game ridiculous. So much for Olympic skeet shooting...and we're just getting started.

I'd advice any newbies of this game to avoid the jumping challenges at all costs. Again: you'd think it's as easy as run and jump, right? Wrong! The jump button has...wait for it...a delay! So you can't wait to press jump, logistically, near the line to jump. You have to use your expert premonition skills to predict when to push the button, so your utterly retarded "Olympic" doppelganger will jump at the right moment...by sheer dumb luck! Predict a jump too soon and he jumps about as far as Jabba the Hut after an all night binge. Predict your jump too late and you pass the line and the jump doesn't count. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Two mini-games mentioned so far; two disappointments. Third time's the charm...? Not if you choose a swimming relay; that's for sure. The idea, one must presume, was to give each character their own swimming style. One swimmer's controls move vertical while another moves horizontal and yet another has you move the controls like a seesaw. Here's where things get stupid: the game doesn't tell you which control scheme your character uses, until a split second before the race begins. This makes a relay race, with multiple swimmers, utterly asinine. You need to quickly look out of the corner of your eye at the animation showing the new control scheme, re-adjust to the new control scheme, and hope you didn't already lose the race. As an inane added challenge: you must click "B" every few seconds during the race, to recharge your stamina (?!?!?). Good luck winning a swimming relay. More likely: you'll learn that no less than eight computer opponents "fairly" beat you. Sure they did.

If you can avoid throwing your Wii remote at the screen long enough to win a few challenges, there is a nice reward in store. Many so-called "dream challenges" are unlocked, which show what a Mario/Sonic themed Olympics should have been. A "dream race," for example, is like Mario Kart, on foot. The colorful environment, "power ups," and areas of the track that speed or slow your performance; are everything a Mario and Sonic Olympic event should be. Too bad you must plod through a whole mess of bad controls and cliché challenges to get to it.

Are there Mario and Sonic fans who will buy this game regardless of this review? Sure. Yet overall, this game isn't worth the price. There are any number of Wii Sports knockoffs that do what this game does, only better. We've already had a shooting gallery. We've already had a race. We've already had running and jumping. The only thing we haven't had is such a game with Sonic and Mario. How good of a sales draw is this? Let's put it this way: my nephews and nieces played this game for all of two hours, and never played it again. That "review" says it all.

---Techtite