This is the third home console entry in the Mario & Sonic series, and although it does a lot of things better than the previous two games...I think this one falls short in a few aspects.

Compared to the 2010 one, this one lacks a story mode, instead being replaced by a weird Mario Party like game mode called "London Party" which....Was ok....But not nearly as fun or in depth as the one in 2010. Other than that, this one comes with new olympic events, and brings back all of the same events from the first game, only better.

Some of the new dream events are great, like the Mario Galaxy themed ones, or the dream equestrian event where you have to protect the Yoshi eggs. However, to me the other dream events are pretty lackluster and don't reach the same hights from the 2010 game, especially the figure skating one.

Overall, still a pretty fun time and still one of my favorite games to constantly replay on the Wii with my friends and family. Definitely just play this one and the Winter 2010 Olympics one, since it seems this franchise only went downhill from here.

This is something different, I was never interested in the Olympic Games that much but this game is honestly fun!

There's a great amount of minigames to choose from, and every single one of them is completely different from each other.

The character roster is nice, the characters have different stats and traits so you can experiment with whoever you want.

And lastly, the London Party mode is a blast! The stakes are higher, and it contains some unique and exciting minigames.

Overall, the controls can get in the way sometimes, but still an enjoyable game, especially if you play with other players.

Final Rating: "Good" ~ 7/10.

One big improvement over the first Wii Olympic Games is that all events are unlocked from the start, so as a party game it’s instantly accessible. At the same time, it feels like there’s also not a lot to do in London 2012 as it seems that the mode where you would unlock games just isn’t included. The Winter Olympic Games that preceded this had a great mode where you went through a mixture of missions and events across a number of “days” to become the overall champion, with some boss encounters thrown in. This just has nothing.

There is a good variety in events, with the basics like 100m and hurdles, match sports like Badminton, Volleyball and Football, technical sports like Equestrian and Discus and the dream events.

The technical sports still don’t work very well, with it being difficult to time things. One big problem with this (most evident with discus) is that you have to actively stop yourself from trying to play the sport with the Wii Remote. If you try throwing a discus by acting out throwing a discus, you’ll fail. Instead you’ll have to wait for the animation to play out (resisting the urge to move your arm in time to the animation) and give the Wii Remote a quick flick once the animation is finished. Hammer Throw seems like it would work better, but requires very precise timing, I got one throw that wasn’t a foul in nine attempts.

Running, swimming and cycling work well, all feeling intuitive in their controls. I really like that Sonic is given a life jacket when swimming, which was an unexpected little touch.

Football is simple but good fun, but these two team/player sports have the same issue as other entries where you can’t just play a single match, but must compete in a tournament. Table tennis is really good, feeling closer to the quality of Wii Sports Tennis, while Badminton just feels more like a rhythm game and Volleyball is just awkward.

I also felt let down by the dream events. They don’t feel like an extension to the sport they’re based on, more like random minigames from Mario Party. The Winter Olympic Games did a better job at these.

This is better than the first Olympic Games, but a step down from the Winter one. Oh, and one additional thing (which isn’t really Sega’s fault) is that the game uses a lot of Olympics imagery. This usually isn’t a huge issue, but for London 2012, the imagery is absolutely hideous.

Would you believe me if I told you this is, in my opinion at least, the best party game ever made?

Yes, I'm extremely biased, but this is far from one of those games where everyone hates it but me, the vast majority of people agree with my affectionate gushing over this beautiful "why-is-this-a-thing" game. That's got to say something positive about what it achieved.

Sure, Mario and Sonic deserve a more substantial outing, but hey, I wouldn't trade this game for the world. It gave me so many good memories, and I still get the urge to revisit this game absurdly often. It's aged phenomenally, and it's honestly depressing that it never got topped by its successors.

Nevertheless, go play this game. It has NO right to exist, but we should be very glad that it does. The world may just be a darker place without it.