Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games Sega Purchase Online   The Short: If you have the Mario and Sonic Beijing game that came out four years ago you can skip this. If you’re on a budget- go with a Mario game or a Sonic game. The magic of these two characters in the same game is lost even though there are some fun moments. There’s some decent multi-player fun to have particularly. It’s not going to be something you play for a long time, but it’s playable. If you have to get this one, wait until it’s on sale. Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games would be more impressive if this were the two video game mainstays meeting for the first time. The magic has worn out here though and these characters have crossed paths before. That’s why some gameplay missteps can’t be covered up with the gimmick of two characters that used to be on different consoles only meeting for the first time. There are three main modes to play in this game. There’s the straight across Olympic games sports orientated mode where you choose a sport and compete in it against different characters. Some of these events are fun, others lack imagination in the control department and are extremely boring to play through. Some of these events are boring and some are fun but there are a ton of different sports to play through, including four new ones (Badminton, Soccer, Equestrian, and Rowing.) Most of these are bland but there are some decent mini-games to play through here. One of the other modes in this game is the dream mode that lets you play through some different sporting events (non-traditional and really non-Olympic related sports) in a competition. It’s not a terrible mode but it’s not as fun as the London Part mode. In London Party Mode it’s more or less Mario Party with a tourism vibe to it. Instead of going around a board and buying stars, you go around collecting stickers for your book by winning the mini games. The mini games in this mode aren’t always fun and again- most of them feel recycled but they’re still not too bad and it’s a fun mode to play in multi-player mode. If you have the Mario and Sonic Beijing game that came out four years ago you can skip this. If you’re on a budget- go with a Mario game or a Sonic game. The magic of these two characters in the same game is lost even though there are some fun moments. There’s some decent multi-player fun to have particularly. It’s not going to be something you play for a long time, but it’s playable. If you have to get this one, wait until it’s on sale. Although the Wii version of Mario and Sonic at the 2012 Olympic Games got a release at the end of last year, the 3DS version has just hit the shelves. It’s not as bad of a game as the Wii version is but it’s not much better. Instead of focusing on a few events and making them more in-depth, Sega and it’s developers have opted to toss as many pointless mini games as possible into one title. A few are addictive and enjoyable but most of the mini games miss their mark. There are over 50 different events in this title that you can play through but of those 50, most of them only take about a minute to get through and the point of them borders on the ridiculous. You have to blow into the microphone or shout for a couple of events and then others are random button mashing, stylus drawing, or gyroscopic control systems. It’s cool that they decided to switch up the controls and make it less monotonous, that makes it better than the Wii version, but really not that much better. The biggest problem with the 3DS version of the game is that they didn’t put the London party mode in the game, instead they opted to put a story mode in this title, and that’s not nearly as fun as the London party mode and it just plays as a monotonous experience with a pointless story line. Mario and Sonic at the 2012 Olympic Games is worth checking out on the 3DS before you play it on the Wii. There’s more variety in the game itself and in the controls and to their credit, the developers tried to make this a completely different experience than the Wii version. There are some fun moments to be had on this title but not an abundance of them.

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