GeekMandem

Mario and Sonic at the London Olympic Games is actually something I haven’t played before this release and honestly went in not expecting the greatest gathering of minigames. I was actually really surprised and consider it a pretty good way to kill some time all in all. The only real comparison I can think to make to it is Mario Party without the board game aspect of it which, to me at least, made it a lot more interesting.

The premise to the story mode is actually not what you would think. They began setting up for the Olympic Games when Robotnik and Bowser become upset that they weren’t invited to compete at the games and created a series of fog machines to cover all of London in an ultrathick multicolor fog that also creates copies of the competitors, ranging from Mario and Sonic to Dry Bones and Blaze, who instantly challenge anyone they meet to a series of Olympic challenges for reasons that are not entirely clear. Once defeated they disappear into the fog and the heroes must find the fog machine and destroy it before it cancels the Olympics.

The minigames themselves have ranged from incredibly fun to exasperating to compete in, against a group even if they are AI. One thing I did enjoy is that near every aspect of the 3DS is utilized. Events use the circle pad, the d-pad, the touch screen, the microphone (you blow into it for some events like sailing and swimming) and even just tilting the 3DS to maintain balance or jump on a bicycle and even blends them together for some events which can be both interesting and worthwhile in a game but I would sometimes forget I had to hold my 3DS is a specific way while pressing on the buttons in a race.

The story mode is interesting to play since it lets you do a bunch of events with different competitors and all but I wasn’t completely caught up in the story part. I actually often skipped the cutscenes before and after the events since you can’t speed the dialogue and they tend to exxplain the same thing over and over which got repetitive but I enjoyed a lot of the scenes with the villains more than the heroes because they had more humor than the heroes once again stating that they had to destroy the fog machine for the millionth time. All said and done Mario and Sonic at the London Olympic Games is a great way to pass time on your 3DS and a really fun time.

8/10-