I’m sure you were, like me, wondering what had happened to Vector, especially after Espio and Charmy Bee were revealed as judges. Was he taking a sabbatical to concentrate on his music, deep undercover as part of his detective duties or had he simply been (heaven help it) lost in the shuffle?

The good news is that the not-so-lean, green detecting machine is confirmed to be in Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games… and he’s playable!

Vector was one of three characters confirmed when SEGA and Nintendo released a press pack yesterday.  The other two are characters close to Luigi, though in rather different ways: the Sarasaland royal Princess Daisy and duplicitous Waluigi.

What else will be revealed in the next few weeks? Stay tuned to the Blognik to find out!

Sonic is always moving, as you know, and last Sunday he was actually in Berlin. In fact he was helping SEGA and Nintendo promote Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games - and lucky athletics fans at the ISTAF-athletics event found themselves able to get their hands on the game for a brief play-through.

In the shadow of Berlin’s Olympiastadion where some 74,000 sold the place out - which bodes well for Berlin’s hosting of the 2009 World Championships - the joint SEGA/Nintendo booth had young (and not so young) players enthralled with a demo of the 110m hurdles.

A competition was also held for the young players, and as you can see some were lucky enough to walk away with some SEGA goodies.

Visitors were overjoyed to meet a gaming icon and play his latest offering, if only briefly. And with all these happy faces, it’s no surprise we here at SEGA are really looking forward to the release of the game.

We’ll have more Mario & Sonic news for you as it comes.

See all the pictures here.

You may have missed it, but the new trailer for Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games went online to much whooping and enthused cooing at the SEGA offices yesterday, though that may have just been the pigeons, I’m not sure…

The CG trailer looks absolutely beautiful and confirms several other characters and events for the game.

Blink and you’ll miss some of the characters in the video, and we’re not going to spill the beans! So check it out for yourself below.

We’ve updated the site!

If you haven’t already seen them elsewhere, check out the site now for new pictures of both the static and moving variety.

What are you waiting for?

SEGA and Nintendo made a truly historic announcement this morning.

Read the full, official press release on the SEGA Europe website here.

Then visit the official preview site here and register for the latest updates as soon as they happen.

Exciting times!

And hello to all those of you visiting the Blognik! Last week I was fortunate enough to get my eager paws on Mario & Sonic At The Olympics and its great fun.  I was only able to do a handful of events before I had to go back to work (you know, that old thing) but those that I did I was able to grasp pretty easily.

I played against a few of the boys here at our office and very soundly taught them a thing or too.  For those who are interested, their default choice of Sonic got rather schooled by a certain Ultimate Life Form - which if you know what I do out of SEGA offices to do with the brand shouldn’t surprise you.

To rub it in I then won with Amy Rose.

We were playing on the Mercury Circuit, a three event circuit consisting of the 100 meters sprint, the long jump and the hammer.  The one hundred meters was by far and away the easiest to do, shaking the remote and nunchuck for all that you’re worth.  However, there are some elements that while you’ll be able to be at least competitive from the off, you’ll be striving to truly master the game for a while, giving a good scope for replay.

Such is as with the start of the one hundred metres; a matter of timing to get off on the gun.  Likewise jumping at the point of board on the long jump and letting go of the hammer at the right moment so it goes into the sector and not the side of the cage.

The long jump is an intriguing three part process - no not hop, skip and jump, that’s the triple jump.  Firstly you need to clap to get the crowd going, how this contributes to the jump I honestly don’t know and something you’ll maybe have to find out.  Next you run, just like in the sprint, until you reach the clock alongside the runway when your speed is locked.

Then you have to flick the remote upwards when you get to the board to jump, overcook the flick and you’ll find yourself messing up your spring, losing momentum and getting a really short distance.  I was constantly trying to master the flick, eventually becoming obsessed after I came close to eight metres and knowing I could go further if only I could get the timing right.

The hammer involves you rotating the remote with your hand (like it was the bottom of a lasso) and then timing your release (with the B button) as I mentioned previously.  It took a few goes to get the timing right, but even with a rather slow rotation with the timing right the hammer soared out to almost eighty metres leaving me to only imagine what would occur if I were somehow able to get all the pieces in the right place.

Hopefully I’ll get on their again soon, so I can tell you some more of my first hand exploits with the game - until next time.

Are you looking forward to Mario & Sonic? Let us know with a comment or two…