Call it a desperate attempt to work off the mountain of Christmas pie if you will (Jay no doubt shall), but the past week has seen me take to my Wii like a fat duck to water. With even a short tennis game on Wii Sports leaving me feeling like an asthmatic sloth it was probably not the world’s greatest idea to focus my attention to Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, but I’ve never been one for using much common sense (putting £20 on a successful Liverpool title bid some four years running, as a rather painful example), so it was to the blue hedgehog and rotund plumber that I turned. Some hours, near heart attacks and exhaustive expletives later, I emerged the other side slightly worse-for-wear.

This, obviously, is somewhat of a landmark game for the industry, not so much in terms of what it actually does, but in the way that it brings together two of gaming’s biggest icons for the first time. Back in a period of time most people of my age curiously call ‘the day’, a Mario and Sonic union seemed as likely as today’s generation would think probable a Christmas panto starring Dave ‘Normal’ Cameron and Gordon ‘Frugal’ Brown, yet here they both are crammed on to one Wii disc and partaking in all sorts of Olympic sports. It’s a strange mixture, but does it work?

Kiiiiind of. I’ll readily hold my twitching hand up and say that when I saw initial videos, screenshots and previews of Mario and Sonic I dismissed it as a throwaway Track and Field button-masher with some great characters stuffed in. In truth it isn’t actually so far away from that in most ways, with most events requiring you to wave the Wii motes around so much that your shoulders want to tear away from your body, but it also managed to pack in a good few events that need a bit of skill and – gasp – accuracy and care, giving the whole thing a much-needed slice of variety.

The whole caboodle is obviously also a tie-in with this year’s Beijing Olympics, although it’s not quite as authentic as it might have been due to not emitting thick fogs of pollution from the Wii vents into your living room to make all that physical activity just that little bit more taxing. Lodged within the innards of the game are 20 Olympic events to tackle, varying from the standard arm-breaking 100-metre sprint and the long jump to the rather more restrained trampolining and archery. There’s also a pretty large selection of challenges based on each event to work your way through, so it’s not particularly shallow either.

These events work to varying degrees, although as with any game of this type it’s horses for courses over what you actually prefer doing. On a personal level I found events such as the hurdles, the swimming and the triple and long jump to be the best, with each offering a combination of frantic waving and skilful timing via button presses. The control system actually works pretty well too, with more frantic and energetic efforts actually squeezing that last little bit of performance out of your on-screen character.

That being said, some of the events that involve aforementioned arm movement go on for rather a long time and involve much variation in style, such as the swimming relay. This involves motioning the remote and the nunchuck alternatively in a number of ways, be it in a running motion, a chest-expanding manner or even an agonising butterfly-stroke both-at-the-same-time job, with each of the four relay legs lasting approximately one minute. It’s a complete nightmare to do even when you’re relatively fresh, but with a little fatigue added in to the mixture it’s quite possibly one of the most painful things you’ll ever have had to do. Forget Track and Field’s thumb blisters and Guitar Hero’s wrist-of-agony; Mario and Sonic will reduce you to a heaving lump on your living room floor.

Other events lead to similar exasperation not so much in a physical way, but because they are not really too much fun and don’t really carry over to the Wii controls so well. The foremost of these is probably table tennis, which in theory sounds reasonable until you come to realise that it feels frustratingly unconnected with what you’re doing, leading you to practically jumping around the place trying to play shots as if you were the party drunk attempting to swat a fly with a fish finger.

Another rather needless addition to the game are the Dream Events, which take the form of the standard Olympic sports with a Mario power-up kind of twist. This transforms even the most enjoyable of events into frustrating games of luck, and no more is this the case than the Dream Race, which sees you having to put a good few minutes of remote-waving only to run the risk of having victory snatched away from you by a competitor who happens to have gotten a bloody decent power-up. Yes, I know this was the case in Mario Kart, but the difference this time is that you actually have to make quite a bit of physical effort to put yourself in a winning position rather than shuffling your thumb across a dpad.

Despite all of this, and despite the tendency for the game to leave you feeling as if you’ve just gone ten rounds with Ricky Hatton, you can’t help but enjoy yourself. Athletics games are usually a good laugh (especially with a bunch of chums), and Mario and Sonic isn’t so different in many ways, save for the physical exertion. Despite the annoyances that the game continues to throw up – not saving records or rewarding unlocks in multiplayer mode being another crime – you’ll still find yourself grinning rather often.

This is obviously helped by the ensemble cast of characters at your disposal, allowing you the chance to whup Sonic in a sprinting race with Luigi or out-duel Bowser in fencing with Knuckles. As with most Mario sport titles each character has areas such as speed and power that they specialise in, so choosing Wario for a sprinting race or Sonic for the hammer throw is about as clever as inviting Paris Hilton out to a party as the designated driver and expecting to make it through until the next morning. Obviously with a number of different circuits to work your way through, each comprising a number of differing events much in the way Mario Kart has its Cups, you’ll need to make up for the odd bit of an attribute mismatch at some point.

It’s equal parts annoying and good fun, then. There’s the Nintendo/SEGA charm and the general enjoyment that such a sports title tends to give, especially in multiplayer (could have done with an online mode, mind), but there’s also the fact that some of the events are too tiring and involve too much wand-waving and that the some pretty alternate Dream Events are pretty average. Still, with quality titles continuing to be a bit thin on the ground and with Wii Sports now becoming a little dull, getting this to sustain your Wii for a month or so isn’t exactly the worst thing you could decide to do.