Now let me clear up a few things up right away. As of the writing of this post I have not yet played Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games. In fact I don’t own a Wii or DS, so I couldn’t play it even if I wanted to. This post is not about ripping on the game itself. I’m sure it’s probably a very entertaining game. After all, you have two of the all time greatest video game characters in one game. The novelty of that alone is enough to warrant a try of the game.

So if I don’t have any problems with the game itself, then why I am I writing this post? Well my issue is with the cover of the game.

The cover features Sonic and Mario, side by side, running at a full sprint. Seems simple enough, so what exactly do I have against it? Well as a long time Sonic fan, I find it impossible to accept that Mario can run as fast as Sonic. Now don’t start labeling me as a Sega fan boy. I know all to well how great Mario is, he has a lot of wonderful character traits that make him a fantastic video game icon. However the ability to run as fast as Sonic just shouldn’t be one of those traits.

Think about it, Sonic is the fastest thing alive. His whole personality is built around the fact he runs fast. Mario on the other hand as dozens of special abilities: he can jump high, grow with the aid of mushrooms, fly with the aid of a raccoon tail, and even shoot fireballs. With all those abilities, does he really also need to be the fastest? Making Mario the fastest character in a game featuring Sonic immediately takes away the very thing that makes Sonic who he is.

A perfect analogy that comes to my mind when I think about this issue is the old comic that featured the race between Superman and The Flash. Granted Superman is awesome and he could sure as hell give Flash a run for his money. But Flash’s only gimmick is that he can run the fastest. Take that away from him and you have successfully destroyed him as a character. What’s the point in destroying The Flash just so you can make Superman more powerful? He’s already super enough damn it, just let The Flash keep his moniker of fastest man alive.

Perhaps I’m looking way to far into this issue. I think part of me is just bitter in knowing how far Sonic has fallen. He’s gone from being the flagship character of a great gaming company to basically being everybody’s bitch. When I look at the Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games cover I instantly get the felling that Nintendo is subtly trying to bury Sonic and such under handiness disgusts me. Sonic The Hedgehog does not deserves to be disrespected like that. He should be honored for who is he: the cool blue dude with a ‘tude.

As far as I’m concerned Mario can have all the damn mushrooms he wants, just keep Sonic the fastest video game character alive.