Mario and Sonic at The London Olympics (Wii)

It's bizarre really that two of the biggest names in gaming are a fat little Italian plumber and a blue hedgehog.

There is no doubting the popularity of gaming's biggest name with each of them having a career spanning decades.

They have also both had a special affiliation with Nintendo over the years and it's fitting that in ann era where Kinect and Move are dominating the motion market that they have come up with another reason not to take the Wii down the car boot sale just yet.

The first two Mario and Sonic games quite rightly gained plenty of critical acclaim, they summed up everything about why the Wii was such a success. The gameplay was simplistic and effective with colourful characters and loaded with quirky features.

This latest game is very much more of the same and guaranteed to fill a lot of stockings when the big fat lad comes down the chimney in a few weeks.

Again quite rightly, this is a perfect family game.

With a whopping 31 playable events there genuinely couldn't be more variety for gamers.

The traditional events like running are included but so are table tennis, rowing, horse-riding, football and many more.

Each of the games pride themselves on simplicity and playability and for the most part it's a huge success.

The football is actually brilliant, very simple, very old-school and highly addictive.

Most of the games are the same in that respect and the appeal of multiplayer gaming is obvious.

This is the game to liven up the Christmas period and have the whole family wailing with laughter.

Nintendo have come up trumps once again with the once bitter rivals again combining to create a very good Wii game.

Score 4/5