The handheld counterpart to the first Mario & Sonic Olympic Games on Wii. This is a fairly simple affair, but also much more enjoyable at the same time.

The touch screen is used a lot in this game, running for example is done by rubbing across the screen, tapping to jump. Overall, the controls for the simpler games work quite well (although fencing again just seems like a complete mess, I don’t think they can get fencing right in these games). Some events, however, use the touch screen and d-pad or buttons. For me, these are a massive pain as I’m left handed, but I’m used to the right-handed way of playing games, so I need the stylus in my left hand but also feel like I need to use my left hand to turn via the D-Pad.

For singleplayer, you progress through 15 cups of 4 or 5 events. You can spend a coin on one of the events to double your score, but you only get one coin. This means that even if there are a couple of events that you can’t perform well at (Pole vault and Triple Jump for me), you can make up for it by doubling your score on an event you do well at. I managed to make it through them all without too much hassle.

Compared to the Wii version, the DS version of the original Mario & Sonic was actually quite enjoyable.