Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Kevin Eva, SEGA of Europe’s Community Manager about Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games. And here is what broke down:

Guesty: Please could you tell our readers a little bit about your background in the gaming industry, and your involvement in the making of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games?

Kevin: In terms of Mario and Sonic alas I had no direct involvement in the making of the game and my games industry history is rather short too. Since March on and off I’ve been helping SEGA Europe out with their dealings with the community, as well as working on their Sonic Blog (the Blognik), the new iteration of Sonic City (coming soon) and some more technical things. I was brought in on a fixed term basis and have now fought my way up to a permanent position as Community Manager dealing with all the future Sonic games, SEGA Superstars Tennis, NiGHTS and a lot of other juicy titles. All of this came from me doing a Sonic fan site, so I’m living the dream you might say – and that only proves that SEGA takes dealing with the online community seriously.

Guesty: Where did the idea come from to make a mini-game style game based on the Olympic Games, let alone pitting two “rival” franchises against each other?

Kevin: Mario and Sonic are icons of both our industry and, in their own way, of our time; the fans have been buzzing for years on what would happen if they met, SEGA and Nintendo were keen on trying to find a way to bring them together. Even back in the day, SEGA and Nintendo have always had a tremendous amount of respect for each other and ever since SEGA took its bow from making consoles that respect has remained. For Mario’s twentieth birthday there was a highly limited t-shirt done by SEGA of Japan for fans of Sonic wearing Mario’s cap and giving a thumbs up – that gives you a bit of an idea. As for why the Olympics? That’s a question we get asked a lot, the simple answer is the Olympics allowed that middle ground for Mario and Sonic to finally meet. SEGA and the IOC were very keen on doing something new with the Olympics license to create awareness of the Olympics to all age groups, with Mario and Sonic of course being the best way to do this. That and the Wii of course lends itself wonderfully to the variation of control required for the different events and the opportunities provided by the DS are also superb; the whole package allowed SEGA and Nintendo to craft a truly fun gaming experience.

Guesty: There are many events across both the Wii and DS versions of the game. Which event(s) do you in particular enjoy in Mario & Sonic at the Olympics?

Kevin: The 100m springs to mind, and of course the Dream Race with it’s Mario Kart/Sonic R combination – the long and triple jumps are great fun especially when it’s a tight contest between friends whilst the single scull, while rather intense, can’t help but make you raise a smile as you pump your arms like crazy near the end. From a technical aspect the control system for the archery is a joy to use, you have to be very delicate and concentrate hard but all the games beg you to master them. I will freely admit to being rubbish at the trampoline though.

Guesty: The game includes an online leader board/ranking system, but how important is online play to you? If a sequel were to spawn from Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, would you incorporate online compatibility such as multiplayer games

Kevin: Online is becoming more and more important in gaming and is something SEGA are continually looking at; if there were an M&S 2012 (or earlier) equivalent I’m sure SEGA/Nintendo would take on board any reactions generated from Mario And Sonic At The Olympic Games.

Guesty: Do you also see this game as a “one-off” for the Beijing Olympics, do you hope to continue the idea with a fresh iteration every 4 years, or the addition of a Winter Olympics version?

Kevin: Who can say? Certainly as a fan I’d love to see a sequel and a Winter Olympics one would be great – Curling with Sunshines and Sonic spin dashing in front instead of sweeping? The Wiimote and nunchuck would be great for a skiing action. I’m sure your guys can come up with a load of ideas and I’d love to hear them but as to whether it will happen…?

Guesty: Was character balancing ever an issue in Mario & Sonic at the Olympics? We all know that Sonic can outrun anyone from the Super Mario universe! Does it cause controversy among fans?

Kevin: I think it’s fair to say the first thing people said was that, Sonic would completely toast Mario in a race – and he would in his world! Since the Olympics is sort of half-way between our world and the worlds of Mario and Sonic though it’s a more balanced affair; they are bound by a bit more realism if you like. It has to be that way otherwise Sonic would win any running event in 0.001 seconds, Mario would triple jump and set a huge long jump record or Tails would just take off and the high jump WR would be two miles or something silly. The different character attributes mean that any character can win any event, though some will have clear advantages… as it turns out Sonic’s got rather low acceleration in M&S but a much faster top speed but he has more stamina than say, Shadow. The other thing we got asked from the start was how can Sonic do the swimming events when he can’t swim, for those that don’t know he wears a life jacket and powers forward by “underwater running”. That was a nice little touch I thought.

Guesty: Nintendo has often collaborated with third-party developers and having their characters’ universes coincide with one another (Mario Basketball had Square Enix characters and Super Smash Brawl has Sonic and Solid Snake). Does Mario & Sonic have any other future plans with each other?

Kevin: The difficulty has always been trying to find a platform both characters can exist in while maintaining their own identities, certainly gamers have been fortunate that two are occurring in such quick succession. I’m sure Mario and Sonic will cross paths again someday in the future…

Guesty: A lot of interest has been made of the Wii version of the game. It does seem to some people that the DS version has been somehow kept quiet about. Do you have any comments on this?

Kevin: I would say being kept quiet was bit inaccurate, we’ve always pointed out that the game will be available on the DS but the Wii version is out in November 2007 and the DS version will be out in 2008. It’s only natural that we focus more on the Wii game at the moment, watch this space though as we’ll be promoting the DS title, which features some different events, very soon.

Guesty: What is your personal opinion of the game? Do you own a Wii or DS?

Kevin: As for the game it’s superb and I mean that, truly superb. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone play the game and not ended up with a big grin on their face from the experience. There’s a lot of comparison to Wii Sports and that’s fair enough – but this is Wii Sports and then some, even before you factor in the Mario and Sonic element. Do I own a Wii or DS? All my funds at the moment are being taken up by commuting! But the Wii is down for my first glorious purchase, I’ve been trying to convince SEGA I need one of everything and they should pay for it as an expense. I’ve had no success as of yet! Wait are you saying you know where they have Wii’s in stock? Tell me! Tell me now!

Guesty: The event which Glyn came to in London, what made you decide to host such an event? Was it as successful as you were hoping or did it exceed expectations?

Kevin: The community event? It’s something that SEGA have been thinking about doing for a while, but with my arrival it really got some momentum behind it – and it ended up being my first project, which with SEGA not having done something like this before was rather daunting. SEGA have always been grateful to their fans for sticking by them and our fans show a lot of creativity and dedication. you only have to go to the Sonic Stadium’s and NiGHTSIntoDreams.Com’s to see that, so we want to get guys like them and other platform specific sites involved a bit more and reward them for their loyalty. Obviously we get good coverage (we hope) from doing something like this but as a team we’re more happy Glyn and the other guys had such a good time. It certainly exceeded my expectations; my fellow Sonic fans actually bought me a drink for once so we must be doing something right!

Thanks for reading and look out for the Wii version in stores from 23rd November!