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London will soon be swarming with Lycra-clad athletes as the thirtieth Summer Olympic Games take over the capital city in 2012. To commemorate the occasion, SEGA and Nintendo have collaborated once more, colliding the universes of Mario and Sonic for the third time. As well as football, equestrian and table tennis – amongst other new events – the game welcomes new dream stages and iconic scenery and monuments from around London.
I only managed to get my mitts on the 3DS version; a short demo showing off five of the new events. SEGA has strived to make the most out of Nintendo’s new handheld, taking advantage of not only 3D visuals, but the tilt sensor, microphone and analogue stick, too. The least enthralling of the bunch was up first: Judo, which turned the martial art into a brief QTE session. As the two competitors edge toward one another – Luigi and Tails in this case – they eventually meet in a judo-embrace in the middle, and a button prompt will flash up on the screen. You’ll have to react to it as quickly as possible, pressing a directional button and either A, B, X or Y with it. Hit the right buttons promptly enough, and your character will lift his opponent of the floor and slam him onto the mats.
Next up was the balance beam, which in this instance saw Blaze the Cat moving daintily along the beam. Meanwhile, on the bottom screen, a little ball appears in a little tube, the idea being to tilt the unit to get it from one end to the other. The further along the beam I spurred the cat, the more complicated these tubes became. After successfully getting the ball to its destination, Blaze would jump and spin and pirouette, impressing the judges in the process. I happened to do alright (2nd place, in fact) but fail to balance properly and you’ll get a face fulla crash mat.
It wasn’t long before I was out the gym and gliding along an expansive body of water. Kayaking demands your ability to rotate an analogue stick as quickly as possible. The quicker you rotate, the faster your oars carve through the water and the quicker you’ll reach the finish line. Despite the simplicity of the task, I ended up being last to do that. There was clearly a trick to it I had missed.
The penultimate event, the breast stroke, swapped the control input once again, this time relying on the microphone. When my character bobbed his head above the water, the idea was to inhale and blow into the mic, your character drawing in a mouthful of oxygen before submerging his head in the water once more. It’s a rhythmic affair, although not something I found myself taking to very easily. Whether this was due to problems with the mic (I was playing outside in the midst of a light breeze), or my inability to breathe properly (I’m an asthmatic whose lungs collapse on occasion), I cannot say.
The highlight of the demo was undoubtedly the final event, Race Walking; that peculiar branch of athletics that dictates one foot must remain on the floor at all times. Like the breast stroke, this also relies on rhythm as its leading gameplay mechanic. I was told to turn the volume up before starting. The idea was to swipe a stylus across the screen – left, right, left, right – in time to the music, with your character strutting through the streets of London accordingly. Mess it up and the music slows down along with your character’s legs. The second half of the race was to a musical background of The Can-can, which quickly reached a tempo that turned my stylus into a grey blur in front of the screen.
Yes, it’s another mini-game compilation, but given the strength of the licenses and tie in to the London games, it will undoubtedly sell by the bucket load – at least over here. It’s not just a shoddy port of the Wii version either, it’s been designed with the device in mind, and the five activities I played made use of its features nicely. I’ve yet to try the other events or any of the dream stages, but the demo appeared solid, if a little dull to be playing on my lonesome.
Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games is due for release on Wii and 3DS next year.
