he Olympic Games are a celebration of the pinnacle of human achievement, a toast to the perfection of one’s art form whether that be hammer-throwing or gymnastics. Why is it that this always translates to “a crappy string of half-baked minigames” in video games? This game had the chance to go in a different direction on the Wii and do something interesting with the Olympics, but unfortunately merely substitutes remote-shaking for button-mashing rather than offering genuinely fun activities.

On the plus side, the controls work fine and the suite of events is extensive. However, that’s not nearly enough to salvage Sonic & Mario’s unoriginal design. Ultimately, what do you care if the game detects a jump motion properly when the entirety of the long jump event is one tiny little timing challenge? None of the games get any deeper than rudimentary controller-shaking with a few timed button presses mixed in. Doing drum rolls on the NES Power Pad was deeper and more satisfying.

Beyond the games themselves being shallow and boring, the presentation actually makes things worse. Mario and pals look sharp enough, but forcing me to skip through two replays (plus a drawn-out “award ceremony” that’s nothing more than the top three finishers posing) per event on top of frequent loads? Non-interactive cutscenes and menu navigation take up more than twice the time you spend actually playing the game, and that’s entirely unacceptable.

Crossover spinoffs can be cool. Aliens vs. Predator was a silly (but totally awesome) idea. Aside from the horrid gameplay, I dearly hope that nobody has ever said, “Man! I wish I could see Dr. Eggman face off against Luigi in the triple jump! That would be sweet!” If your priorities are that out of whack, you deserve to play this stinker.