Asterix at the Olympic Games preview for Nintendo DS

This being an Olympic year, what better time to have a look at the games in ancient times - well, one version of them anyway. In Asterix at the Olympic Games, out on the DS this spring, you'll follow the diminutive Gaul and his sidekicks through the ancient games, taking part in a variety of sporting events. We've gone hands on with the game this month and it works pretty well on the DS, both visually and in terms of gameplay. Asterix at the Olympic Games is a spin off from this year's film, and from what we've seen it promises to be a whole lot more satisfying experience than its movie inspiration.

Click here to read our Asterix at the Olympic Games preview for Nintendo DS now!

Asterix at the Olympic Games preview for Nintendo DS
You've got to hand it to the French. Only they could come up with a tall tale that rewrites history to recast Greece's Olympic Games as an ancient event conquered by the Gauls. A best-selling comic since the late 60s, Asterix at the Olympic Games is now also the third live-action outing for the diminutive pigtailed hero and his monolithic best friend Obelix. And where there's a family-friendly movie there's inevitably a video game spin-off… And yet, colour us excited about this pixelated interpretation. If there's one thing that works well on the dinky DS screen, it's cartoon capery.

And if there's any filmic subject matter that merits video game treatment then it's the Olympics. What's more, this is a game that cleverly provides not one, but two trips back in time. Obviously there's the version of life in Europe at turn of the first millennium. But then there's also the fact that Asterix at the Olympics offers a spiritual journey back to the 1980s, a time when Track & Field, Daley Thompson's Decathlon and other old-school multi-event sporting games ruled supreme.