SEGA, the gaming company responsible for the gaming
characters like Mario and Sonic, announced today the release date and the first
details about Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.
This is the first title to feature both iconic gaming
mascots, Mario and Sonic and it will be released for Wii and Nintendo DS on
November 23. The game was announced in March this year.
Sonic The Hedgehog is one of the most popular videogame
icons of all time with over 44 million games sold worldwide while Mario games
alone have sold more than 193 million worldwide.
Published by SEGA across Europe and North
America, and published by Nintendo in the Japanese market, Mario
& Sonic at the Olympic Games is licensed through a worldwide partnership
with International Sports Multimedia (ISM), the exclusive interactive
entertainment software licensee of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
According to SEGA, players will compete in events that take
place in environments based on the official venues of the Beijing 2008 Olympic
Games.
SEGA revealed that the players will compete as one of 16
characters - 8 from the world of Mario and 8 from the world of Sonic. Also the
company announced the complete list of events available in game:
Fencing - Individual epée
Archery
Shooting - Skeet
Gymnastics - Trampoline
Gymnastics - Vault
Field - High Jump
Field - Pole Vault
Field - Long Jump
Field - Triple Jump
Field - Javelin Throw
Field - Hammer Throw
Rowing - Single Sculls
Table Tennis - Singles
Aquatics - 100m Freestyle
Aquatics - 4x100m Freestyle
Track - 110m and 400m Hurdles
Track - 4x100m Relay
Also SEGA said that the games offer four playing styles to
choose from and players can decide their game strategy: all-around, technical,
speed, and power - for example: Mario and Amy (All-around), Peach and Tails
(Technical), Sonic and Yoshi (Speed), and Knuckles and Bowser (Power). Players
will be able to choose and try out, in both single and multiplayer mode, each
event individually with Single Match mode (where players can choose their event
and play until they score top marks).
They can also compete for the highest overall score in a
series of events in Circuit mode (where players can create their own circuit by
choosing the individual events, choose a pre-determined circuit, or randomly
generate a circuit).
At Tokyo Game Show 2007, Sega predicted that their upcoming title, Mario &
Sonic at the Olympic Games, will sell 4 million units, Bloomberg reported.
The ambitious goal was announced by Masanao Maeda, a
corporate director at Sega's game software division, but he declined to give a
specific time period for the sales target.