Rayman Raving Rabbids Wii

Rayman Raving Rabbids Product Details

Released on 08/12/2006

• Rayman and Rabbids to get 3DS outings

  Ubisoft has revealed that its Rayman and Rabbids franchises are to make the leap into three dimensions with new instalments for the Nintendo 3DS.
  
  The distinctive limbless hero Rayman will make his 3DS bow with Rayman 3D, an enhanced remake of the Dreamcast-era classic Rayman 2: The Great Escape.
  
  Players can expect some classic platforming action controlled via the analogue Circle Pad, with the game having been overhauled with an updated learning curve, refurbished visuals and impressive 3D effects.
  
  Meanwhile, the popular screaming Rabbids - who originally made their debut alongside Rayman in the 2006 Wii title Rayman: Raving Rabbids - will star in their first ever platform game, Rabbids 3D.
  
  It will see the insane rabbit-like creatures attempting to take over the human world by travelling through time to change history.
  
  Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot promised the games will "take advantage of the amazing innovations that Nintendo has designed with its new handheld platform".

  Published: 21/01/2011

• Rayman Raving Rabbids Review

  Nice R's.

  Platform stars are a versatile lot. For years now Mario, the portly embodiment of jump-based gameplay, has also had a very viable sideline of all sorts of ‘other' titles, turning his hand to tennis, fighting, golf, racing and party games galore – while the likes of Sonic and Crash Bandicoot have also followed suit, though with decidedly more mixed results.

  And now it's Rayman's turn. With Raving Rabbids, Ubi Soft – and, most importantly, design guru Michel ‘Beyond Good and Evil' Ancel – have taken their likeable platforming icon and given him his own minigame-mad party title. This isn't your usual Rayman outing, but thankfully that doesn't damage the amount of fun to be had here. Indeed, the limbless wonder's new adventure on Nintendo's Wii proves itself an intuitive and highly enjoyable showcase for the system's new motion sensitive controller.

  At the game's outset, a cutscene depicts Rayman peacefully picnicking with a few friendly baby Globoxes; a serenity that's altogether shattered when the blank-faced bunnies appear and a super-sized brute of a rabbit duly carts our hero off to a jail cell. The ‘story', for what it's worth from thereon in, revolves around Rayman completing four out of five minigames per in-game day, passing challenges to earn the plungers which he'll stick to his cell wall, and ultimately climb up to escape his prison after day fifteen.

  Pleasingly, the presentation here makes Raving Rabbids feel like far more than a series of disassociated microgames. Events themselves are accessed through a huge Rabbid-filled amphitheatre, with literally hundreds of the furry critters all baying for Rayman's blood, but all of which will shower him with applause with each completed challenge.

  Rayman's cell acts as a bedroom-styled hub, allowing you to select an outfit at the wardrobe, several unlockable songs at the jukebox, and look at your list of taken challenges. That latter is available via the toilet; because everyone does their best thinking on the toilet, apparently. It's a bit bonkers if you ask us, but in the context of Raving Rabbids' altogether abstract gameworld, it barely feels out of place.

  A horde of hungry rabbids are charging directly at you and you've only a plunger launcher for protection.

  Nor, thankfully, do the minigames themselves, which collectively carry far more depth than your average party title. They effectively fall into four distinct types, with each individual game making its own unique use of the Wii's nunchuk and remote control setup.

  Without a doubt our favourite are the first-person shooter sections. These are on-rails though, so they play as a cross between a lightgun game and a pointer-controlled traditional FPS, but you'll be thankful of that when a horde of hungry rabbids are charging directly at you and you've only a plunger launcher for protection.

  When you get past the shooter parts, you soon begin to realise what a great job Ancel and co. have done of milking the minigame idea. They're a wide and varied bunch, with only a few genuine bad eggs amidst a frenzy of five-minute blasts.

  Take the dancing games for example; featuring school disco classics such as ‘Girls Just Wana Have Fun' (named ‘Bunnies Just Wana Have Fun' here) you'll be timing your flicks of the nunchuk and Wiimote as tens of the little white critters pass over disco lights within the space of a few seconds, with successful strings giving you more and more dancing bunny pals matching Rayman's own smooth dancefloor moves.

  Where dancing tests concentration, racing challenges reactions. Jumping on an odd-looking warthog, you'll steer Rayman through a set of actually-quite-well-designed courses, with a limited number of speed boosts, and a shortcut-laden track design all adding depth – on top of an already fast racing engine which wouldn't be out of place in its own standalone release.

  The reaction-testing nuances of the racing minigames, however, pale in comparison to the sheer exhaustion-inducing endurance tests of the ‘Workout' offerings. Bunnies Can't Fly, for instance, sees you furiously pumping the twin controllers to gain speed on an old minecart in order to launch a Rabbid flying as far as he possibly can. Another good example would be Bunnies don't Milk Cows; using the same more furious two-handed pumping action to fill up as many jugs of milk within a given time limit. It's all very fun, if rather shortlived – though there's so many offerings here that you'll likely want to try them all.

  There's something just so fun about every ridiculous cow-throwing, bunny-bashing, Wiimote-waving snippet.

  But when you do, you'll notice Raving Rabbid's full quota of 70 minigames is a little bit of a cop-out. You see, as you progress and unlock more modes, plenty of its offerings prove to be merely repeats of previous ones, just a little bit harder or a touch reworked. On top of that, the implementation of the final minigame type, Precision, is noticeably more hit-and-miss, often proving incredibly twitchy to control, and often imposing some pretty tough time limits which can make it all a little frustrating.

  Bunnies Never Close Doors would possibly be the best example. Here it's your job to move a hand icon over any opened toilet cubicle doors and flick your wrist in order to close them. Simple enough, right? However there seems to be a certain sweet spot you have to hit each time, and if you're ever-so-slightly outside it, the door just simply won't budge. Frustrating isn't the word when you've tried it for the tenth time, only to repeatedly receive several plungers in the face from angry Rabbids.

  Other precision-type games, however, don't suffer from this awkward control issue. Bunnies Are Slow To React is an addictive 3D tilt-maze puzzle requiring you to twist and turn the Wiimote to great effect, while Bunnies Are A-mazing is a top-down, 2D maze game that's interminably tricky but incredibly rewarding when you eventually get it right. We could go on, but you get the idea.

  Where these all come into their own is in multiplayer. Raving Rabbids is at its core a party title, and the minigame setup couldn't be more well-suited to the Wii's special social dynamic. Having said that, it's a touch disappointing that some of the games are turn-based, rather than played simultaneously on a split-screen, but that never really seems to affect Rayman's appeal; there's something just so fun about every ridiculous cow-throwing, bunny-bashing, Wiimote-waving snippet that you can't help but enjoy yourself with it.

  Similarly, Raving rabbids' aesthetic aspects aren't without their drawbacks – it's solid, functional visuals certainly aren't going to win the Wii any new converts – but the light-hearted feel of the game, and particularly the character of the Bunnies themselves, just seems to work. Together with an overall successful implementation of the Wii controller and an approach to design that's never anywhere near dull, Rayman's first foray outside of the platforming world might just prove to be the Wii's sleeper hit this Christmas.

  GAME's Verdict

  

  • An incredibly fun party minigame compilation
  • Unlockables in the room give it longevity
  • Inventive, enjoyable use of the Wiimote and nunchuk

  

  • The odd iffy gametype
  • Less play-together and more take-it-in-turns multiplayer games than we'd hoped
  • Not spectacular looking

  Review by: Mark Scott
  Version Tested: Wii
  Review Published: 30.11.06

  Published: 30/11/2006

• Rayman Raving Rabbids Preview

  Bunnies! It must be bunnies!

  When you're sent on a Parisian press trip to see the latest Wii launch titles, what you don't anticipate is getting lost in a cab with two guys from Gamespot, arriving at the first press event late, eating odd gelatine snacks, and - following a night of PR hospitality - ending up at the next day's event an ambling, sleep-deprived shadow of your former enthusiastic self. Hardly the stuff of dreams.

  Not that I'm really complaining, mind – any chance to play on the Wii, and a Rayman game in particular, was welcome. I've been huge fans of the limbless wonder since his spectacular second appearance on consoles, and of the more recent games by Ubi Soft's Michel Ancel, the man behind Beyond Good and Evil and King Kong - and now at the helm for Rayman Raving Rabbids.

  Floppy-eared freaks!

  Apparently, with the titular Rabbids, Ancel was aiming to make the most terrible foe for Rayman he could possibly think of. I have to say, I don't get the rabbit-phobia thing entirely, though it is difficult not to feel entirely uneasy as an army of screaming furless floppy-eared freaks lurches ominously towards the screen, demanding that you fill their goggles with… well, some kind of carrot-coloured syrup.

  And that's just one of the minigames in Raving Rabbids - a Rayman title that plays more like a party game than the platform title you'd usually expect from the Ubi Soft stable. It's a release full of equally off-the-wall concepts, all of which are modelled entirely around showing off exactly what the Wii's motion sensitive controls can do.

  "Bunnies Don't Know How To Throw Cows" is but one of the games available, tasking Rayman with hurling a cow as far as possible in hammer-throwing fashion. For the player, this means whirling the Wii Remote in a circular motion and pulling the B trigger at the opportune moment, sending the unfortunate breathing beef joint hurtling through the air in a manner that would make Earthworm Jim proud.

  offering sheer fancy-dressed, free-falling, plunger-shooting, afro-haired four-player insanity.

  Another, entirely different, minigame we took a liking to was the Pilotwings-inspired "Bunnies Only Fly Downwards", which asked me to use the Remote to guide a skydiving Rayman through a series of mid-air coloured rings, tilting the controller forwards to seed up his descent, and using it to steer between hazards like train tracks and giant pillars - one of which I splattered our hapless hero into on my first go. Oops!

  There are also several first-person shooter style levels, seeing bunnies flooding towards the screen as players shoot them with plungers. Using the Wii Remote to aim and fire, and a flick of the Nunchuk to reload, this proved a surprisingly intuitive control system, though the level itself remained on-rails like a lightgun shooter.

  And these are just the tip of the iceberg, with around 80 minigames on offer, all using the Wii Remote in novel ways. Skipping, for instance, sees you moving a rather painful-looking metal by rotating the Remote, and jumping with a flick of the wrists on your Nunchuk hand – an awkward technique something akin to patting your head with one hand while rubbing your stomach with the other.

  Varied and fun

  Other minigames include drawing food to feed a bunny (holding the Remote like a pen), dancing (using rhythmic Remote/Nunchuk shakes), and closing bunny-occupied cubicles (moving a cursor and flicking your wrist to shut the door), making this a varied and fun party experience.

  The singleplayer mode sees player takes on 15 ‘days’, with four randomly selected events in each day - from which further minigames can be unlocked, plus new outfits and tunes for you to really personalise your Rayman experience. However it's in multiplayer the game really comes to life, offering sheer fancy-dressed, free-falling, plunger-shooting, afro-haired four-player insanity.

  So, as it turned out, the two-day spell in France proved a worthwhile way to enhance my enthusiasm for both Wii and Ubi Soft's big launch titles. Parisian chic, funny food, and great gameplay by the bucketload. A dream after all.

  Preview by: Mark Scott
  Preview Published: 12.10.06

  Published: 12/10/2006

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