Mario, Sonic, and friends are back to compete at the Olympics, this time in the 2012 London Summer Games. This marks their third outing, but the first on 3DS. The E3 demo had a pre-selected "medley" of events, each of which showed a different use of the 3DS system features.

First up was judo, where I was instructed to perform a quick sequence of button presses. Punch them out fast enough, and your character will perform the appropriate moves to take down your opponent.

In the 1000-meter kayak race, players are instructed to use the Circle Pad in an unconventional manner. You're supposed to use your pointer finger to spin the pad as fast as possible, conjuring images of the Mario Party stick rotation games, but without the painful results. If you want to go fast enough, you probably will need to use your pointer rather than your thumb. It certainly shows that Sega is going no-holds-barred with the controls.

Following the boating expedition was gymnastics where players use the 3DS gyro controls and tilt the system to guide a ball through a simple maze. Manage that quickly enough and your on-screen character will complete their moves.

Fourth was badminton, but instead of really playing badminton, players just have to press a button to judge whether to hit the shuttlecock or let it fly out of bounds. It's not at all what you'd expect from badminton; it was more like something from WarioWare.

Rounding out the set was the 20km walk. Here you had to motion back and forth on the touch screen in time with the music, power-walking your way ahead of the competition. Get out of sync, and you fall behind.

Of course, it is hard to translate many of the Olympic events into applicable game mechanics, but there was a pretty big disconnect between many of the mini-games and their real-life counterparts. Performing a set motion and then watching the characters do something entirely different makes it feel more like a turn-based RPG than a sports game collection.

On the flip side, Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games has nice, bright, and colorful graphics, and the overall presentation feels very polished. The demo did make it clear that the 3DS would be put through its paces control-wise. Four-player local multiplayer is also promised, but it wasn't available for trial.

As the demo was limited, I didn't feel like I had a very good idea of all that M&S2012 for 3DS will have to offer. A ton of other games are promised, and hopefully they're more engaging. From my brief time with the games, if you're interested in another Mario & Sonic mini-game collection, it looks like the Wii edition will be the one to get rather than the 3DS version, as it seems to offer more robust gameplay and a better multiplayer experience.