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Asterix At The Olympic Games
Nintendo Wii 
Atari £40

Asterix At the Olympic Games is more an adventure jaunt than the sporting bonanza the name suggests — and a good one it is too. 

There’s some sporting action to indulge in, including track and field events as well as javelin, long jump and tug-of-war, but much of the action involves taking on pesky Romans and solving puzzles. 

Based on the movie of the same name, you’re Asterix or his great pal Obelix — you head to Olympia with Getafix to help Lovestorix win the hand of Princess Irina. 

Unfortunately Brutus, the muscle-bound adoptive son of Asterix’s arch-nemesis Julius Caesar has his eye on the beautiful princess, too. 

To complicate matters, there’s an inter-dimensional key at stake, which can be used to travel between parallel worlds. It’s up to our motley crew to thwart Brutus, win the games and recover the key to save the world. Phew!

You can toggle between the two playable characters at the push of a button — Asterix is better at running and jumping, while you can rely on Obelix for brute force. But sometimes it needs to be a team effort. 

When you’re Obelix, his faithful hound Dogmatix can take out enemies and sniff out useful stuff. Traitorous Roman Sam Schieffer is the game’s clue man and provides hints to help you.

There’s an array of special weapons and moves such as power-hammers and super-whips plus the ability to swing and throw Romans. Magnesia sachets and glue buckets top up your climbing, Roman twirling abilities and add time to the grabbing and throwing gauges. 

With colourful graphics, great voice-acting, a storyline that trots the action along very nicely and heaps of challenging puzzles, fun combat and smart sporting interludes, this is a real winner. 

WALL.E — The movie about the little robot (cert. U) is out now. And if you’re heading to the flicks, you can enjoy a Journey To The Center Of The Earth (cert. PG) or catch Kung Fu Panda (cert. PG) or Prince Caspian (cert. PG) if you’ve not seen them already!
Olympics 2008 — Head to www.news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/specials/sport/olympics_2008/  for all you’ll need to know about the Games, held this summer in Beijing. 
My Little Ponies — The plastic pets (a craze in the ’80s) are turning 25 this year and uber-cool actress Jaime Winston has admitted she’s still a fan! 

Rip-off ringtones — Companies that send kids ringtones and texts they don’t want could soon be a thing of the past. Because there have been so many complaints, the people who make the rules for mobile phone companies want the cost of ringtones made clearer and say it should be easier to stop unwanted ones being sent to phones.

Monster Mob

by John Pickering

© All copyright D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd., 2008