Luckily the game isn't just about Mario and Sonic. Both brought along their friends to compete and they've been put in four different categories, based on strength, speed, abilities and a mix of those three.

Qua challenges and missions you can't complain in this game as there are tons for you to play. There's for instance the Gallery in which you can check out minigames to unlock the music you used to find in the good old games of Mario or Sonic.

Of course M&S at the Olympics isn't about unlocking music, but beating the competition. For this the missions and circuits are the perfect opportunity. In the first the idea is to complete certain tasks by rubbing the screen with your stylus, eventhough this is sometimes impossible due to the bad response time.

From all that rubbing you can get cramps so sports can be taken literally in this game... when it comes to your arm that is. Some games, like riding bikes or swimming, contain endurance or stamina in the form of a heart. When over-using this your character can slow down due to fatigue, but not using it isn't an option either. If that isn't bad enough, you have to start shouting in your microphone for some games to get a better achievement. Since the micro doesn't work all too great, you'll end up with shouting the lungs out of your body.

The circuits are divided in three categories (easy, average and hard) and consist out of three or more games in which you need to get as many points as possible. In one of these you can use a coin which makes your score double and if you're smart you'll use it in the event that you're best at as this may make the difference between winning or losing

By winning circuits you unlock dream events which have a slightly different principle than those of the normal games. Here you have the possibility to use specials that can give you an advantage.

The problem, however, is that the explanations on the games can be quite unclear so you'll first have to get used to them and look to see what you need to do. Once you get the hang of it, however, it becomes very simple as you often have to do the same things over and over again. This does bring a "been there, done that"-feeling...

A nice extra is that you can also play the game against your friends.