Winter Stars has all the hallmarks of being a deep game. The career mode has a tournament tree that needs to be unlocked. You gain XP that can be spent on different events, purchasing new parts for your bobsled or unlocking “talents” for your figure skating. It’s unfortunate that these have no discernible effect on your skills. You may as well just turn the difficulty down.

As for the playing the game itself… let’s start with the interface. The developers have chosen a hybrid of the two most popular forms of Kinect interface – hover over a hotspot and then wipe across the screen to select it. In doing so, they have created the most unfriendly monstrosity of an interface I have ever had the misfortune of using.

The layout of menu “buttons” is perfectly designed for a screen and mouse. Lots of beautiful rectangles, perfectly aligned, nice and big and close to each other so they look pretty. Problem is, when you’re trying to use Kinect, the difference between option 1, Continue Campaign, and option 2, Delete Campaign FOREVER is approximately 2 centimetres in hand-waving space. It’s incredibly easy to drop from one choice to another mid-wipe. Thankfully, I haven’t deleted my campaign because choosing that option is followed by a confirmation screen which is equally difficult to select first time.

Once you finally do get into the campaign mode, you’re confronted with the tournament tree. Again, you’re asking to hover over hotspots. This time, however, you move your hands left and right to scroll around the tree or to select tournaments. Cue hilarious funtimes when you’re want to scroll right and instead jump into an event because there is no part of the screen that doesn’t contain a tournament.

By the time I reached the events themselves, I was already feeling grumpy and intolerant. Having to use yet more of these hover-and-wipe gestures to skip through a cheesy, badly-drawn cut-scene and 5 pages of instructions did not help matters.

Finally, I emerged from menu hell to play a winter sport. Bobsleds, woo-hoo! I actually quite like this event, except for having to run on the spot to get the thing going. Please, game designers. We ladies do not appreciate having to put on a sports bra to play a game. Lucky for me and thanks to my UFC Personal Trainer experience, I am now an expert in subverting Kinect controls. You can simulate running in Winter Stars by flapping your forearms up and down at the elbows. Away we go!

You have two methods of control in Winter Stars – Simplified and Normal. Simplified puts the game almost on rails, with just the occasional pose to keep things on track. In practice, this makes the game pretty much a waste of time. I managed to place second in the figure skating by virtue of doing nothing at all. Still, it’s probably good for keeping children interested.

Normal mode is a big jump from Simplified and gives you full control over everything you’d expect from your player. For all its flaws, I’ll give Winter Stars this: it’s an incredibly responsive game. I don’t know what unholy magic 49Games have worked but the response times on critical timing events, like the shooting section of biathlon, are stunning. It works very well in bobsled too, leaning left and right to direct your sled around the corners at high speed.

Of course, this one great feature serves to work against you in events like figure skating as you either start too early or hold a pose for too long. Big gestures in motion games can be fun and did help me feel like I was a figure skater (given a sprinkling of imagination) but the translation in Winter Stars comes across as unnatural. Rather than mimicking the skater, you’re simply asked to hold one of a few poses, with unclear timings and camera angles that serve to hinder the game’s directions. Here’s a video from 123Kinect showing how difficult it is to track the instructions.

I freely admit that I didn’t play much of this game, which is not something we normally do for our reviews. In fact, I’ve just played the first of approximately 20 tournaments, which only covers 4 of the 11 events. Why do I have the audacity to review this game on the basis of such little gameplay? Because it’s appalling.

I’ve played the opening tournament 3 times, for 2 full hours. Because I’m atrocious at downhill skiing and I find it dull as dishwater, I’ll need several more attempts to win this tournament. I can’t progress further in the game without winning and therefore, these four events are all I can play.

Even though each event is only 3 minutes long, the frequent loading screens, tutorial skips, menu choices and other actions can drag a 12-minute tournament out to 20 minutes or more. That’s a lot of replay required for failing just one event. Couple this with an annoying “Please move away from the sensor” that pops up over half the screen throughout most of the downhill skiing, yet still allows the game to register my actions and this game just isn’t a pleasant experience.

Other people have really enjoyed it. See 123Kinect’s detailed review where Winter Stars is “one of the better adult Kinect titles to date” or This Is Xbox’s “a great game for the whole family to enjoy“. I like my family. I wouldn’t inflict this game on them for the world. Might post it to my ex-boyfriend tonight.

Should you be a glutton for punishment or need something to keep the family occupied over Christmas, Winter Stars is available now for Xbox 360 Kinect, Wii and PS Move.

No longer named with the quite-a-mouthful Smackdown Vs. Raw moniker, WWE ’12 is the best game for WWE fans yet. The series has never been state of the art, but each year there have been notable improvements and this year’s is no exception.

The first noticeable improvement is the speed of the matches. This has been achieved not just by speeding up movement of the superstars, but also the changes made to the controls. THQ have finally reverted back to a single button grapple, not used since SVR 2006. Matches flow so much easier due to this change, allowing momentum to be built or lost, just like their television counterparts.

The two main additions to match gameplay are the Limb-Targeting system and the Comeback system. Although no damage display is present onscreen, a quick press of RB during a grapple gives the option to attack the head, arms or legs with the touch of one of the X, Y, B, A buttons, and also shows the current damage to the opponent’s body. This is great for tactically wearing an opponent down for a quicker victory. The Comeback system springs into life if your superstar/diva has an injured body part and from there a running attack initiates a QTE sequence.

If successful your opponent will be floored. The momentum has swung your way and you have a finisher primed and ready to use. Miss a QTE, and its back to the drawing board. This is another excellent, useful function that adds to an already realistic WWE experience. The only issue with it is it’s yet another QTE system in the game, which requires more luck than skill. The counter system is untouched, so be prepared to learn the timing of all the moves in the game, as otherwise it’s time to throw your pad at the TV, particularly on the harder difficulty levels. On the whole, the action is fast, furious, and fun.

There are minor drawbacks to the altered control system, however. For those who have followed the series closely (like myself), it is not made clear that fundamental control changes have been made; any action performed with ‘A’ is now performed with LB, as ‘A’ is now the grapple button. For me, this led to a very embarrassing loss in a ladder match, as it wasn’t clear how to climb ladders. There are tutorials available, and a list of controls so unfortunately, you will find yourself having to re-acquaint yourself a little. For new gamers to the series, tutorial reading aside, this game is a perfect jumping on point. The controls here are the best system yet and hopefully will stay in next year’s edition, too.

The superstars themselves look more unique, with their own facial expressions (finally) instead of the same generic ones from previous titles. The camera system is much improved also, with angles adopted from WWE TV, to give it that feel of realism. Superstar entrances, ring announcing, and victory segments are also excellent to see and hear, and the entrances are as close to the real thing as I’ve come across in a videogame so far.

In-game however, there are minor issues. Although the crowd area is much more populated than ever before, there is, for example, a blonde haired woman who often appears several times across the crowd. Her clones all move the same way, at exactly the same time. The crowd noise is also suspect – they go deathly quiet at random times and Heels (WWE parlance for bad guy girl in the storyline) quite often get cheers when they should get boos.

The match commentary is fine. It reacts to the action pretty well, however you will easily channel it out or more likely turn it off due to repetition. As importantly as WWE takes commentary, it has been poor for quite a few years now anyway. Yes Michael Cole, I mean you.

Arguably the game’s strongest area is the creation/customisation modes and options. These includes options and items to fully create not only a new superstar/diva, but even past superstars such as Jeff Hardy and Chris Jericho, the latter a noticeable absentee for fans this time around. In addition to Create A Wrestler, you can now create arenas with fully customisable ring, floor, announce table – the full works. For those fans that miss WCW, the chance to create their old arena setup will be snapped up.

These created arenas can be used for any matches in the game and in WWE Universe mode, the next area to receive significant positive changes. Universe mode was created for Smackdown vs Raw 2011, and replaced the old general manager mode, controlling Raw and Smackdown rosters, change title holders, and so on. Now you are also given the opportunity and tools to create your own shows with whomever you want, using any arena, to truly become a unique WWE General Manger. If that’s not to your taste, then just pick any superstar/diva, created or otherwise, in any match to compete in or even just simulate them. Universe mode truly is a triumph on all fronts, and is my favourite area of the game.

Another area with massive revamp is Road to Wrestlemania mode. Instead of the usual ‘episode’ choices, with separate superstar stories, it is now all integrated into three episodes: Villain, Hero and Created Superstar, one after the other. Essentially however, it isn’t much different from past Road to Wrestlemania modes. The storylines are ok, but the voice acting is a little weak, almost lethargic. The usual wrestling action is solid and to complete Road to Wrestlemania clocks up a good few hours, with auto save allowing you to come back to the action whenever you want.

The game has tons of collectibles to unlock, most within Road to Wrestlemania mode, including superstar legends such as Stone Cold Steve Austin, Edge, and, somewhat bizarrely, Brock Lesnar, who recently signed merchandise rights with WWE again, even though he left the company under a cloud in 2004. It certainly is a very welcome blast from the past. Road to Wrestlemania is also the most challenging single player mode on offer; it has its own self contained options menu, with no modifications allowed, i.e. turning CPU countering/damage down, so be prepared for a long haul. Some may find this frustrating or ultimately boring. I say bring it on, there are achievements and items to unlock here, people!

WWE ’12 is an excellent wrestling game. Of all the WWE games since Smackdown vs. Raw 2007, this is certainly the best so far. WWE ‘12 cleverly and accurately depicts WWE as it is shown on television. A lot of changes have been brought in this time around, mostly for the better, whereas some areas, such as Road to Wrestlemania mode, are now in an infancy stage, due to being rebooted. This is no bad thing. It’s a massive part of a strong single player experience, and has plenty of scope for the future, too. It’s every WWE fans’ dream game, and is a definite must buy. For those fans that are either new to WWE games, or the Smackdown Vs Raw series in particular, this is a great place to start. I believe many of the changes made here will stick for some time, so is a great starting point. Bigger? Certainly. Badder? Getting there. Better? Definitely.

WWE ’12 is out now for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii

It was a more innocent time back then. Rather more offensive to Indian gamers perhaps, but it was always done with love. Since them, Team 17 have been churning out the Worms games and you know what? They’re still great.

I lost an entire afternoon the first time I sat down with Worms Crazy Golf. The traditional Worms style is there but wrapped in a more (dare I say the word?) social setting. Worms Crazy Golf translates the physics and 2D setting of the traditional worm-killing franchise into a fantastic game on the iPad.

You don’t spend your time trying to blow each other up. Instead – as one would expect from a golf game – you hit your ball into the hole, amidst a host of environment hazards. 4 golf courses with 18 holes each gives a very good length for the single-player career mode. In true crazy golf style, you use cannons, mystery tunnels (or in this case, teleporters) and magnets to navigate each level and they get progressively more difficult. All the screenshots here are from the Britannia theme. You also have Pirate Cavern, Graveyard and Carnival.

Rather annoyingly, you do need to finish each hole on par or better before unlocking the next. Yes, yes, I know this is to give you a sense of accomplishment and progression and it’s just How Games Work but I do find it tedious. Where so many other iOS games give you a rating out of three stars, the pinnacle of achievement here is presumably to get a hole-in-one. That doesn’t do it for me so being forced to play the same hole over and over becomes a bit of a chore. I’d be happier if I could switch between the different courses for variety but that doesn’t seem to be an option.

As you progress through single-player career mode, you’ll gain coins and “utilities” like the ability to use a parachute to slow down and control your fall, anti-gravity to float over obstacles and so on. Each power is limited to 10 seconds in the level, so you can’t just float your way to the end.

Well, actually… if you do it right, you can. You can achieve a hole-in-one on every level once you’ve unlocked the correct power. Each level has a set of challenges as well, leading to plenty of replay value. Challenges include a number of varieties on the theme of knocking your ball onto a target area, a time attack to blow up as many sheep as possible in the given time, and a skill shot mode where you… blow up as many sheep as possible in the given time but in a slightly different way.

Of course, the best way to play any Worms game is with someone else so they’ve included a “Hot Seat Multiplayer” mode to be played while passing the iPad between your friends. You can each customise your worms with unlockable hats, different coloured balls and the oh-so-adorable voices. Sadly, The Raj is no longer available but we do still have Angry Scots, Scouser and the wonderful Soul Man. The multiplayer mode is good fun, though slightly marred by the loading times. In this post-Angry Birds era, we’ve all become far less patient in games and I found myself getting quite impatient waiting for the level to reset between each player’s turn.

There is a rather annoying interface design issue around the unlocks. I’ve completed the first skill shot available with a score that’s 200,000 points over the target of 75,000, yet I can’t progress to the next skill shot. There’s nothing to tell me what I need to do to unlock the next challenge. Same goes for the hats and voices. All I want to do is give my little worm golfer his Soul Man voice. I’ve earned loads of coins but I have no idea why I can buy new styles of golf club but not unlock any of the extra voices yet. Frankly, I couldn’t care less about the colour of my wedge. The help file suggests that some items need to be unlocked first by collecting crates but you have no indication of which item is in which crate. I very much dislike the lack of agency.

However… that doesn’t mean that this is a bad game. Worms Crazy Golf is a great game for the iPad. It’s beautiful, it’s charming and it’s fun to play. For £2.99 I’d definitely recommend buying it.

Worms Crazy Golf HD is available now on iTunes for iOS 3.2 or better. You can also get the non-HD version for iOS 3.1.3 and above

Screenshots

Rugby World Cup 2011 markets itself as ‘The only Rugby World Cup 2011 game’. It claims to own official licenses for England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and South Africa but all that means is the names of the players and the strips. There are no player identities apart from some are black, some are white, some are bigger, some are smaller. When you begin a match for the first time in the game, you will rest your controller on your lap and take a sip of tea as you get ready to observe the national anthems. You’ll be horribly disappointed.

Your choice of commentary team will confess ‘the home side have a lot of flair’ and then kick-off. You will ‘punt’ using a very dated arrow technique to control the direction and the depth of the kick. After that the game is pretty linear. Your player will catch the ball after the punt and you will sprint down the field as far as a huddle of opposition who will tackle you. No skill is required in winning a tackle. Mere bashing of the same button repeatedly is enough to decide your fate, though it hardly seems like it matters how much or how little you bash that button, you win some you lose some regardless. Paranoia? Maybe.

You can mix things up with chip and chase and this does generally make things look that little bit more realistic and exciting if only for 2 seconds. When you catch and sprint forward away from the opposition, press that button and score a try the camera moves out to your loving fans in the crowd, who appear to be wearing a mix of various colours connected to about 5 or 6 different rugby nations. Some dude in a blue baseball cap, black scarf and red and yellow shirt is going nuts for you out there. The passing controls are a mirror image of you watching the TV screen, which gets a little bit of getting used to. Not being able to create imaginative movement with the ball is slightly suffocating and the placing of your opposition’s defence always appears to be the same no matter who you are playing.

The game modes are Tournament, International Test, Warm-Up Tour and Place-Kick Shootout with an online play. In my opinion the Warm-Up Tour brings nothing to the game, purely because the quality and content of the Tournament mode are exactly the same which is disappointing. There is no change in atmosphere or feeling of grandeur between the two. On a side note, I had expected a lot more involvement from a referee in the game not just a whistle sound. Rugby’s refs are ever-present and well respected men. It would’ve been a nice touch.

I had longed for a game that would prove to gamers and creators that there is much that can be done with sports gaming. There could be more than Fifa v PES and the coming and going of quality in basketball, golf and ice hockey games. This most certainly is not the game to do that. I will say however, the choice of 3 commentary teams and the convenience of having the fixtures and pools installed for this years tournament is very handy although what you’d expect. As I sat watching the opening ceremony this morning and the Hacka being performed by Tonga and New Zealand, finishing this article, it was clear just how much this game has missed the mark in failing to portray just how awesome a spectacle the Rugby World Cup is.

Rugby World Cup 2011 is available now on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

This is the first review by our new sports writer, Fiona Donaldson. In her own words:

Grew up with an older brother who taught me about the great things in life, like how playing games, loving sports and watching Sci-Fi could get guys to like me. It certainly worked while accosting my loving boyfriend, when I acknowledged Adric and the existence of Secret of Mana and Yoshi’s Island. My ignorance when it comes to reading instructions hinders me through ever game and yet I never learn. Not being born a man means I can never play for Scotland but FIFA allows me to do so in the form of a bald man named after my Dad. ‘Big Jim D’

Hello, old friend

Initially I felt right at home with Speedball 2: Evolution. The graphics, menus and even the team names were all very familiar. The title music contains elements of the original stonkingly brilliant Speedball 2 title track by Nation 12. Ok, the new track is not bad, but I wish they’d included a lot more of the original track. As in the original game, you take control of a Speedball team called Brutal Deluxe, or in my case The Avg Gamer. You start off with $1500 in the bank to either transfer in new players or train up your team in the gym. You can choose to upgrade single or multiple abilities on any number of players. The interface in the gym works really nicely with the touch screen; well implemented and simple to use.

Thankfully, Tower Studios have included a short tutorial for people new to the game, or old grizzled players like me who want to learn how the new controls work. It is entirely optional, but I recommend it for the simple reason that it will remove any doubt as to the best control method to use. Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe was designed to be played using a joystick and buttons. In my case I used my trusty and indestructible Competition Pro 5000. That poor joystick would get some serious abuse during every Speedball game I played. Given my history, I was very curious how Tower Studios had translated the controls to a touch screen. The results are mixed.

You control the player closest to, or with, the ball. If you don’t have the ball, tapping the screen makes the player perform a slide tackle. If you do have the ball, tapping the screen makes them throw it. Tap on one of your teammates and your player throws the ball directly to them. Tap and hold the screen and your player will lob the ball as far as they can. The AI controls the other players in your team so you don’t have to worry about them following the play. Intelligence is also one of the abilities you can upgrade in each player in the gym. A more intelligent player will be better at reading the game and be in the right place more often.

OMG, noooo!

So far, so good. Everything is in keeping with the original and entirely sensible. Now we come to the default control method. The tilt. This is where it all goes horribly, horribly wrong. You are expected to tilt the iPad to move the selected player. OMG. This is the most fist-eatingly annoying control method I’ve ever used and one that is completely out of place in a fast paced ball game. I actually wanted to kill my iPad and my team after playing a few games with the tilt controls. Aggghhhhhhhhhh. Tower Studios have ruined Speedball 2: Evolution. You bastards!

Thankfully, there is another and eminently more sensible control method via the virtual on-screen joystick (pictured). You choose which side of the screen the joystick lives and then you’re away. You can move the joystick area around the screen by lifting your finger and placing it back on the screen. By using this virtual joystick I finally felt like I was playing Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe again. My players responded (mostly) to my commands, they could pass, tackle and score goals. Phew. It’s not perfect, by any means and it isn’t as good as using a real joystick. I felt the gameplay was slower when compared to the Amiga original, but then it would have to be as the control method is crippling you slightly.

Jon Hare has told The Guardian that the tilt mechanism is very intuitive after about 30 seconds use and that the virtual joystick is a retro way of playing. Sorry Jon, that’s bollocks. The tilt controls are awful and that’s not because I’m old and want to use a joystick. The tilting action is clumsy and frankly uncomfortable to play, particularly on the move. Also, you look like an idiot flapping your iPad around everywhere. This is not something you’d want to do at work in your lunch time or if you fancied a sneaky game. Or anywhere in fact. Try it now. Grab your iPad or a large plate if you don’t have an iPad and flap it around in front of you with your arms bent. See? Stupid control method.

Game on

The gameplay hasn’t changed at all. Simply get more points than your opponent. Points are gained by scoring (10 points), hitting a bumper or a star (2p), lighting all 5 stars (10p) and knocking out an opposition player (10p). You can also pick up really handy team-wide power ups during each game – like freezing the opposition players – although the effects only last for 5 seconds. Pickups are scattered around the arena and these affect individual players (e.g. increase stamina) until they are tackled. You can also activate score multipliers by throwing the ball up one of the ramps on either side of the pitch. Do this once to increase any points gained by x1.5 or twice to double your points. I used a mixture of scoring goals and killing the opposition to rack up the points.

I’m happy to report that Tower Studios have included all the classic sound effects from the original game. “Get Ready”, “Ice Cream, Ice Cream” and “Replay” are all there and sounding better than ever. You also get to hear the Amiga disk loading sound whenever the game is loading. Brilliant. Click, click, click.

As with Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe, the main point of the game is to manage your team from the bottom of league 2 to the Intergalactic Championship. You have a maximum of 10 seasons to play with. Earn money by winning, which you can spend on your team. Usually the first season is fairly tough as you build up your players and then you can start kicking butt. There is also the challenge of unlocking the other 5 Speedball arenas as only the original arena is unlocked at the start. There is a quick match option if you can’t be arsed with the career mode. Preset competitions (cups and leagues) and a custom competition (create your own cup, league or tournament) are also available.

For those commuters amongst us, the game can be paused at any time using the on screen pause button. Locking the iPad or pressing the home button also pauses the game allowing you to resume it later. Handy and essential for playing whilst on the move.

The social network

Given all the social network melarky that’s about nowadays, it was inevitable that some of it would find its way into the game. In Speedball 2: Evolution’s case it’s Facebook. You can invite your Facebook friends to play and check out their career stats if they do. Multiplayer games are also available over wi-fi or bluetooth. Having lots of Speedball 2: Evolution, iPad owning Facebook addicts may just prove to be useful for once ;-) You can also listen to your own songs whilst playing, when you get sick of the in-game music.

If you invite friends to play the game via email, then you get a $2,000 cash boost and another $2,000 boost when you join the Speedball 2: Evolution fan club via email registration. There is a game boosters section where you can buy $10k, $50k and $100k cash boosts for real money. $100k boosts costs a whopping £2.99. That’s more than the game itself. Madness!

Summary

Speedball 2: Evolution is a faithful recreation of the Amiga classic Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe on the iPad. It looks and sounds brilliant but is completely unplayable when using the tilt control method. However, when using the virtual joystick the game is almost as playable as the Amiga original. If you haven’t played Speedball 2 before this is a pretty good place to start.

Speedball 2 is out now on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch for £1.79p from the App Store

Well, our FIRST first impression was pretty terrible. The starter kit arrived with a faulty PS Eye camera, so we spent far too much time plugging in, unplugging, twiddling with cables and generally not playing. Once we figured out the problem and got a replacement, it all got much better.

Popped in the starter disc – every demo needs to be installed before you can play :( Cue ages of press install button, go do something else, come back, press button for next demo. 30 minutes later, we were finally up and running.

I’m impressed by the tracking. It’s everything that we expected the Wii to be. The PS3 knows where the pointer is and the direction it’s pointing, which opens up lots of good melee weaponry opportunities. But hey, we’re the voice of the average gamer over here. If you want a thorough deconstruction of the tech, go read a tech blog. Nick and I are here to tell you if it’s fun. In between building our new games events site, we’ve been playing through the available demos this weekend:

Are they any good?

Echochrome II is booooring. Wave a torch around and watch the shadows form new shapes. Ooooooo, mind-blowing! Not. Yes, I appreciate that you probably need quite a bit of expertise to build good challenging levels, and there is a design mode for those of you who like that sort of thing. We both got bored playing within minutes.

Stacking up virtual children's blocks? No thanks.

Kung Fu Rider has a crazy concept – push your speeding office chair down the street to escape the Mafia, duck or jump obstacles and use roundhouse kicks to destroy anyone in your way. Sounds like it could be fun. In practice… yup, you guessed it. Booooring. Maybe I was doing it wrong and I should have been sitting down like I was actually in an office chair. The fact is, I simply don’t care enough about this type of game to give it another go. Might be a good party game. I’ll revisit next week after we get a load of friends round to try it out.

Watch the Monkey!

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 crippled me. I have chronic lower back pain, normally nothing too serious but 5 minutes with this game has made me practically couch-ridden :\ I realise that I’m probably doing it wrong so golf fans should try this one out for themselves. It’s a little annoying that you need to use a normal controller for menu navigation but gamewise… well, I’m crap with a golf club and crap with a PS Move golf sim, so it seems representative to me ;)

Imma slo-mo' sharpshootin' cowgirl

Right, I’m off to further aggravate my back with a spot of painkillers and Sports Champions Archery. We’ll get a full review up later in the week and cover the rest of the available demos.

It’s officially approved by the Olympic committee for the upcoming Beijing games. They had a lot of influence over the gameplay and their input helped ensure that this isn’t the crappy Wii Sports clone it could have been. Wii Sports is a great game but its lack of depth means that we rarely play it unless we have visitors. It’s just not that engaging compared to… well, pretty much any other game we own.

The Game

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games has over 20 different Olympic sports to play. They’ve chosen a good range of them, too. You have the basic track and field events, like hammer throw, triple jump, sprints, hurdles and relays. There’s also skeet shooting, trampoline, archery and a bunch of swimming and gymnastic events. To top it all off you can unlock Dream events which use the skills you learn from the Olympics and drop you into a more traditional Mario/Sonic fantasy setting. And yes, there is a sprint version of Mario Kart so you can get your fix of cheating flinging lightning bolts at your friends.

The proper sports event are much more detailed than Wii Sports. In general, Wii Sports only modelled a small aspect of the games – for Wii Baseball, you didn’t have to worry too much about the game. You just smack the ball with the right timing and you’re off! The game did all the running and fielding for you. In Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (or MSOG as I shall now call it) they’ve put a lot of work into properly modelling the events.

For archery, you use the Wiimote to draw back your arrow and aim, much as we expected for Zelda: Twilight Princess but didn’t see. You have to worry about the wind direction as well as keeping your aim steady. For Pole Vault, you don’t just run and jump. You have to run, lower the Wiimote to plant the pole at the right time, struggle to spring yourself up to the right height and flip your body over the bar. Each section has its own control style. Passing a baton between relay runners means raising the Wiimote as you would a real baton; rowing needs you to row with the Wiimote and nunchuck; and trampolining involves swinging the wiimote up and down to bounce you to greater and greater heights. Once you’re high enough you have to pull off a complex button combo to finish the acrobatic routine in time for the next bounce. I played it once. And scored a perfect 10. Click on the picture for photographic proof. I like the trampoline section ;)

As for the characters – you can play with your Mii, though I have yet to see how an armless, legless Mii can cope with trampoline or fencing. You can also choose from sixteen characters, eight from the Mario world and eight from Sonic. Each character has its own advantages. Sonic is, unsurprisingly, very fast while Princess Peach is, more surprisingly, good at skill-based events. It’s still balanced so playing Sonic doesn’t mean you’ll win all the speed events. Shadow is just as quick, so playing with your friends doesn’t turn into a race for the best character. Even playing by yourself is entertaining. There will be online leaderboards so you can attempt to beat everyone’s “Olympic” records.

In Summary

It’s great – a fantastic step forwards from Wii Sports. I fully expect Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games to be this year’s family Christmas title. It will be released in the UK on 23rd November 2007. You can preorder it from Play.com

The Bloggers’ Event

As for the event itself… the Wii flat is nice in a crowded kind of way. If you’re going to use a domestic setting to demonstrate a game to seven people, for heaven’s sake put a futon or sofa bed in the tiny bedroom! Sega also had a video camera and did a few interviews with us. With any luck mine, won’t be uploaded anywhere since I’m not much good at off-the-cuff diplomacy. They asked me what I thought of the event and the only thing that came to mind was “You hired people in Mario and Sonic costumes? Seriously, how old do you think we are? Six??” Thankfully, I didn’t say that but all I could come up with was a slightly confused expression, along with a mildly patronised “It was very exciting”. I’m definitely not cut out for videocasting. And I still posed for photos with Giant Mario and Giant Sonic.

It was good afternoon anyway. A fun game and it was nice to meet up with our fellow UK games bloggers, who are apparently all male. The other woman in the photo below was part of the marketing team.

Other blogs there

• Nintendic
• Zath
• British Gaming Blog
• NTSC-UK
• Binary Joy
• Nintendic
• NekoFever