I was quite impressed by this game, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games is good in every way and would have taken a long time to make. Once again Nintendo have used their 3D graphics on the DS making it look a lot more impressive than games like Children of Mana and those who still use the GBA style pixels.
You may find that the majority of games are button & tap based, with the occasional stylus trick and blowing out candles, well prepare your arm for a lot of work because Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games puts you into the game.
Be warned that this game may melt your stylus. Yes, I said it. During races and things on the Master level, you can't win unless you slide your stylus at the speed you'd run from a bull at. The friction heats your stylus and melts it, not to mention the scratches it leaves on your screen.
This game will have you clapping into the mike, shouting into your speaker, slidding, twirling, spinning and tapping your stylus, spinning your stylus and letting go at certain times, sliding then tapping then alternating and tapping and holding and lifting and sliding your stylus... Seriously, this is so jam packed with action that I could go on like that for days.
If you have this for the wii already then there isn't much point buying it for the DS, but there is a lot of interesting new play styles so it's still fun. The game is based on the Beijing 2008 olympics so it only has the current events, but it does have a few extra events which Nintendo have added or modified for fun, that they call dream events.
If you don't already know about the game, it's just like the olympic games on DS but with your favourite nintendo & sega characters involved. There's things like races and long jump, to things like diving and swimming, or all the way to canoeing and jousting.
You could play the game for hours and not get bored, there is so many events and characters. If that isn't enough to keep you happy, the game even has missions and mini-games. Completing the mini-games will earn you educational information about the Olympics so if you're looking for a good children's game, this is a G rated game that I would recommend for 6 year olds and up, even adults would enjoy a shot at this game.
Along with that, you can un-lock trophies, medals, songs, etc. Things like the trophies and medals are earned by playing events. Each character earns separate medals so playing the game over and over again doesn't get boring and changing character has meaning.
Badges can be earned by completing random tasks and Songs are earned when you complete a set of mini-games.
Still not enough you say? How about Multi-player? The multi-player offers multi-card play which includes everything, or just DS download play with has 6 mini-games to chose from. You'll really impress friends who don't have the game.
Anywho, if you don't want to spend much money on games and only want a few good games, this is one I recommend that you buy. Not only does it have days of game play so you can survive on just one game, this game is probably one of the best DS games in that it really takes in the DS features and puts them out in a very clever way. You get to really experience the DS with this game, the controls are also very comfortable and easy too.
As I said earlier, the only down side is that you will damage your stylus, so it's good to have a few when playing this game hard, also the touch screen is a bit iffy so it may not do exactly what you want all the time. Other than that, this is the greatest game in terms of game play and entertainment.
