Reviews// Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games

Festival mode is a straightforward 'career' game which lets you pick a character or team and play through 17 days of the Olympic Winter Games. On each day there are a number of events to either train in, or compete seriously for a Gold medal. If you muff up though, you don't get another chance, and each win or completed task earns you points that rack up throughout the course of the Festival. Along the way you'll meet 'rivals' which are as close to bosses as you can feasibly get in this game, featuring Ski racing with King Boo and an Ice Hockey match with Dry Bowser.

The further you get in Festival mode and the more Singles matches you win, the more Star Points you earn, which can be used to purchase material in a shopping centre. A whole array of items can be collected, including soundtrack music (as well as select tracks from the Mario and Sonic universes), decals for your equipment, Olympics history and costumes for your Mii character. You can purchase gloves, boots, jackets and all sorts for your Mii and you can even buy full body suits of Metal Sonic, Doctor Eggman and Bowser among others.

SEGA has done well to really improve everything after Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. The fan service problem has been well and truly fixed, and for some people that will be more than enough the price of admission for the Olympic Winter Games. My favourite part, as a Sonic fan, is in the Dream Figure Skating contest (where the Wii Remote is used in various ways to perform prancy, poncy skating moves) which has you skating to Sonic songs against the Green Hill Zone and Death Egg backgrounds, before performing a figure-skating recreation of the battle with Perfect Chaos from Sonic Adventure.

Some of the actual events are less sterile than those in the Summer games too – Bob-sleighing and the Skeleton provide a great speed rush while the Curling is a good change of pace (although the AI always manages to be better than me – damn those knocking slabs of Scottish rock). Of course, for the... dedicated gamer, there's little here that will keep you coming back after Festival mode and discovering the Dream Events, beside completing every event with every character - and that's a grind on a truly Olympic scale.

For kids and families and those hosting parties though, it's a very good, Wintery alternative to Wii Sports, and if a constant stream of Olympic events are off-putting to you, the Party games mode wraps up the core gameplay in a mini-game shell that offers a, frankly, mildly distracting experience.

Score: 86%
As a party game, this is highly recommended. It builds on the first game and improves on every level. There are still a few accuracy kinks, but they are few and far between for a title that makes inventive use of the IOC license and really takes advantage of the Mario and Sonic franchises. 'Core' gamers – whoever they are – will likely baulk at the lack of longevity, and this game isn't really for you. It's for the Singstar, Buzz and Wii Sports crowd, and on that front it succeeds.