Multiplayer Wahoo

I picked up a couple new games wednesday afternoon.

Call of Duty 4 was not one of them. It's been Shooter overload lately, so I'm in no rush for another one.

I got Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games and Scene It Lights Camera Action.

Both are great fun, especially in group of friends.

I had never played a Scene It game... I can't imagine this new Xbox 360 version is much different than the others, except it should keep track of the questions you've already seen, so it'll be long before you see repeats.

Mario & Sonic Olympics has its definite pros and cons.

It's great to finally see a full game with Miis being implemented... although you could argue that this is just a bunch of minigames. I consider Olympic-based video games as part of the sports genre, not necessarily the minigame collection genre. Unfortunately, they again ignore the size you have built your Miis, and adjust them to the same generic height. I'd rather see them the way I designed them. Why else did they give size options to begin with? And letting them have a voice would be good too. And is there a way to alter the not-so-flattering track suit they're given? Mario & crew don't have to wear it, why should the Miis?

I've had some issues with the controls. So far, I've only gotten the parry move to work about 25% of the time during my fencing matches. I don't see why the A button can't activate that move on its own, instead you have to press A and swing the wiimote upwards. There are also a few odd control schemes for some of the other events. But at least the drumming motion used for running isn't as tiring as button mashing on other Track & Field games.

I also noticed that there seems to be a lot of loading time for a Mario game.

The only other problem I have with the game is you have to play single player through the circuit mode to unlock all the events. Which is quite disappointing; since the circuits are set up like Mario Kart, why can't you play two player to unlock everything? You're often competing against 7 other characters, why can't one of them be player controlled? I wanted to play with my friends on equal footing, but it looks as though I'll have to give myself the advantage of practice to unlock more events before our next gaming session.

On the positive side... I had loads of fun. I love track & field games. And I actually set a world record: 9.6-something seconds on the 100m dash. My profile name is Meager... though I sure that record will be shattered quickly once more people pick up this game. I'm not sure if you can check the leaderboards anywhere outside the game, so my fame will be underwhelming.

I look forward to comparing this to more realistic Olympic games that I'm sure will follow before summer. I'm sure this will hold up quite well. I'll probably still be playing it, cursing whatever records I can't beat.