Didn't Sega say they expect to sell 4 million copies of this game?  I'm surprised there's not a lot more advertising for it.

There is a 2 page spread in Nintendo Power (just like GHIII).

The game is not very good. Just pass it on as another "bad" spin off. It's just another Sonic R, Sonic Shuffle, Mario Party Advance... Althought it does hold a special title for being the first Mario game, with Sonic in it... Or the first Sonic game, with Mario in it... It's just not very good. Save your money for Super Mario Galaxy!

 So you played it?

Yes.

Spent a couple hours playing with my teenage son. Generally speaking we're very happy with the game, easy to play, hard to master. Having said that, my son set a world record on his first event (100m run) which really sucked, but in every other event we struggled or at least didn't set any records.

Computer opponents seem to go from too easy to too hard (which is preferable) depending on mode played.

Eppie is more fun and challenging than expected, but swimming is almost entirely won based on timing of breaths, being even slightly off will slow you down way more than merely swimming slowly. This is good and bad, good because it requires more than wild waggling, bad cause you can be swimming great and a single mis-timed breath can lose the match = frustrating. All events so far have been like this to some degree, but only swimming is frustrating me, but my son mastered it better than I, but he's frustrated with skeet shooting and I'm not so it's all good I guess.

One thing that some reviewers are complaining about is that the game tells you how to do the event, but not exactly. There's a lot of trial and err. Some think that's great, myself included, because that means you have to learn and master the game. Sites like Gamepro whine because they want every waggle to be a button press instead of actually reading out fast/far/hard they are moving it and penalizing them. How hard/fast is just right? Up to you to learn for yourself.

Online would have been great, because this is definately a title that once you've mastered the art of each event, you will like kill any noob or less experienced opponents, although, I'd expect the odd upset.

Presentation is good, but could have used more time to add more variety to responses. It's gets boring seeing the same 'uh I lost' or 'yeah I won' response all the time, especially in table tennis were you see them all the time.

Events are not deep, but not too shallow either. I'd like a deeper game myself, but that'd take real dedication to master too and put noobs at an even greater disadvantage.

All in all, it doesn't feel like Wii Sports II, but it's much better than Carnival Games or other mini-game fests. If you like Olympic games, get it, if you want to see Mario vs Sonic, get it, if you want a fun multi-player game, get it. If you want something great, pass it because 'great' it isn't, but it's good and it's fun and may well fellow MP8 to success.

I'm on vacation for 10 days so when I return and get more time on the game I'll give more insight on individual sports.

Thanks for your impressions!

Gamedaily's review is up:
http://www.gamedaily.com/games/mario-and-sonic-at-the-olympic-games/wii/game-reviews/review/5933/1857?&ncid=AOLGAM000500000000013&page=2

6.0

Gamezone:

http://wii.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r32173.htm

7.5

Insightful and worth seeing again.

A rather positive one from Eurogamer:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=87779

7.0