Finally Nintendo have released another Wii game capable of offering the same kind of multiplayer enjoyment as Wii sports.
Lets be honest – the Wii for most is all about multiplayer fun and in that department Wii sports has always been the best and very few have come anywhere close to being as much fun for groups of people to play.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games could change that, containing around 24 mini sports events all based on real Olympic events it already beats Wii sports hands down in the number of playable events.
With events ranging from classic track & Field events such as the 100m sprint and high jump to others like archery, trampolining and table tennis there is plenty to choose. The Wii remote and nunchuck are used for most events – you much franticly shake the remotes as fast as you can to build up speed in the sprint events or perform some rather complicated button presses on events like the trampoline.

The events are good fun to play and quite varied, some work well abut sadly the controls let some of the events down in a big way. Table tennis is pants and events like the tripple jump and trampolining require very accurate controlling or you'll totally mess up and fail miserably.
To start off your limited to the number of events you can compete in both singly and in the multiplayer modes – to unlock the others you'll need to complete various circuits in the single player game. This can be quite annoying if you've bought this game purely for the multiplayer side of things as you'll need to spend a few hours unlocking everything on your own first.
Also as you progress in the single player game things get a good bit harder – something young children are likely to struggle with.

The graphics look nice and some of the character animations are great. The sounds however start to get very repetitive and annoying – just as well you might struggle to hear them over the sounds of your friends laughing.

For each event you can select which character to use, included are some well known Mario and Sonic related characters such as Luigi, Wario, Yoshi, Peach, Knuckles and Tails and some that I've never seen or heard off before. You can also use your Mii's if you'd rather.
The multiplayer side of things supports 4 players – so you'll need at least 4 remotes for the likes of the 100m sprint event – failing that you'll still get plenty of enjoyment with 2 remotes and 2 nunchucks. It's the multiplayer aspect that shines through and definitely takes the gold for multiplayer enjoyment. Watching your mates or family shaking the remotes franticly is a great laugh and after a few hours of playing everyone will end up with sore arms but huge smiles on their faces.

There are a few small flaws with the controls for some events and also some of the events themselves are weak additions that really could have been a lot better, that being said though it's still one of the best Wii games around at the moment.

If you're after another Wii game that's great for playing with friends and family of all ages then you'll struggle to do better than Mario & Sonic at the Olympics. It has the potential to be as good as, if not better than Wii sports and will provide many hours of enjoyment – especially at this time of year.
If you're after a decent single player game then you may want to look elsewhere, it's fun to play through on your own but becomes far more special as a multiplayer game.

Easily one of the best wii games I've played since the Wii's release and I look forward to a good few nights around Christmas playing this with family and friends.

8/10

Merry Christmas Everyone and Happy Gaming.