Playing a sport is easy, being good at one is hard, but being great at loads requires levels of speed, strength, and stamina that only portly plumbers and hedgehogs can summon. Next year's Winter Olympics brings another opportunity for Mario, Sonic and friends to show off their sporting prowess and by gum, they're jazzed to do so. (Nintendo and Sega today announced Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games for Wii U, I'm saying.)

The sport 'em up offers arcade-y versions of the Winter Games various icy activities, including skiing, snowboarding, curling, ski jumping, speed skating, paired figure skating. It also has "dream events," strange sports set in the fictional worlds of Mario and Sonic so they can be a bit weirder. Think snowboarding with cannons which launch you, bobsled with loop-de-loops, and a skiing-snowboarding-bobsled combo.

Some use Wii Remote Plus, while others control with the GamePad, Curling, for example, has the curler drawing plans for sweepers to execute, while the biathlon uses the GamePad to aim the rifle.