There's not much explanation necessary to make you understand the concept; take a couple of sports, put them in a blender with the worlds of Mario and Sonic, and make sure that the controls consist of variations to wildly swinging the Wiimote, or carefully balancing it. Put two or more players in the sofa and make sure everyone has a great time.

In that aspect, the mission is already a success. The design is good, colorful and has more variation and features than its predecessor. Occasional players will have good fun for a couple of hours and it gives them a reason to take the dust off their Wii once again. But that's all there is to it. The "fun" in this game for this type of target audience comes more from the well-known characters, the funny graphics and sounds and the overall dress-up than the gameplay.

In total you get 27 events including a number that take place in some sort of dream world and where normal events are set in psychedelic or videogame-like environments and where you suddenly get Mario Kart-like boosts, pick-ups and other stuff. A nice addition to the normal events where you get to ski, do bob-sled racing, skate or other things.

What you have to do with your controllers is clearly (and for experienced gamers too often) explained, and even with the biggest newbies you can immediately go to work. Skiing is done by holding the remote straight up and tilt it back and forth, left and right to steer and accellerate. This part is also the most fun to play as it does need some skill.

Figure skating is also quite fun as you have to get as many points as possible and looks funny. However, in the end also this part is very simple and linear. The normal skating disappointed quite a lot as I had to just about shake my arm off and you really get tired of that after about 30 seconds. Curling is interesting as you have to work together to influence the curls while they slide, and ice hockey appeals as it's more action-oriented.

All these parts can be played seperately but I preferred the Festival mode more. There you go through somewhat of a campaign of about two weeks where each day you get to do new events or train, and fight for medals together with your friends against the AI instead of each other. Don't buy this game if you've only got one remote; the fun is completely in playing with friends. Also Balance Board freaks should watch out as some events do support but it you can't use it in Festival mode and other multiplayer games. Very unfortunate.