Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games

MARIO AND SONIC AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES

Today, let's begin the Mario and Sonic Olympics games, a crossover series promoting the Mario series, the Sonic series, and the Olympics. With a couple of exceptions, these games have come out contemporary with the current games and are set in the respective cities the games took place that year, this first game held in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. Please note, I will only be covering the console version of the game this time, and will cover the handhelds at a later date.

The game features eight playable characters from each of the two main franchises represented here. Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, Yoshi, Wario, Waluigi, and Bowser represent the Mario side, while Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy Rose, Shadow, Blaze the Cat, Vector the Crocodile, and Dr. Eggman represent the Sonic side. Other characters, like Toad, Cream the Rabbit, Lakitu, and Espio and Charmy from Team Chaotix act as referees, and other enemies (Koopas, Boos, Egg Pawns, and the like) tend to fill up teams when needed and appear in the audience and background often. It should also be noted that, much like our other guest characters so far, the Sonic characters will not be talked about here, as they will be covered when I get to their own series.

As mentioned before in other series, no gameplay here is inherently connected to any specific character, so there won't be too much updated. Rather, the gameplay is all the various sports played at the Olympics, with the characters simply standing in for real-world athletes. For thoroughness's sake, though, let's go over the sports played. We have 100m freestyle swimming, 100m freestyle swimming with a team of four, archery, 100m run, 400m run, 100m relay with a team of four, 110m hurdles, 400m hurdles, long jump, triple jump, high jump, pole vault, hammer throw, javelin throw, fencing, gymnastics with a trampoline, gymnastics with hurdles, rowing, skeet shooting, and table tennis. The game also includes four "dream events" which include the more fantastical elements of the Mario and Sonic series, sports that could not normally be pulled off easily or safely in the real world. These include a Dream Race through a Mario desert world, Dream Platform which includes you skydiving through a fleet of Egg Planes, Dream Fencing which gives your characters special moves to use, and Dream Table Tennis set in a sci-fi world with special moves of its own.

I suppose that's really about it to go over. The only items are generally equipment used in the respective sports.

Here's what we've got so far:

Characters:

Mario

Luigi

Amy Rose

Blaze the Cat

Sonic

Shadow

Princess Daisy

Yoshi

Princess Peach

Waluigi

Tails

Dr. Eggman

Knuckles

Vector

Wario

Bowser

Stages:

100m freestyle

4x100m freestyle

100m

400m run

4x100m relay

110m hurdles

400m hurdles

long jump

triple jump

high jump

pole vault

hammer throw

javelin throw

fencing

trampoline

hurdles

rowing

skeet shooting

table tennis

Dream Race

Dream Platform

Dream Fencing

Dream Table Tennis

Thanks for reading! Next up, let's cover the next game in the series, for the 2010 Vancouver games.