N-Philes

Rayman Arena

Posted by Archived.

I want to start this off by saying that Rayman Arena is not Rayman 3. I got it and was like, "Woohoo, Rayman 3: Arena! Don't know why they took away the Hoodlum Havoc subtitle, but I'm not complaining. Rayman 3!" And then it hit me like a cold sack of potatoes, this wasn't Rayman 3, it was some Mario Kart imposter with that lovable Rayman on the cover, which, again, was another misconception. Nevertheless, I pushed onwards, determined to find some semblance of the non-jointed freakshow that everybody loves to praise, Rayman.

Gameplay

So what exactly is it then? It's basically a fleshed out multiplayer mode marketed as a standalone game. Think Turok: Rage Wars if it helps you. There are two different modes: Race and Battle, each containing twelve different levels. There are nine different characters total, but none of them have any different attributes. Nobody has better jumping skills, so the question of picking a character is entirely moot.

One would think the Race mode would be similar to Diddy Kong Racing, but it really isn't. When you race, you race on foot, and essentially, it boils down to who has the faster platforming skillz. It reminded me of a time when the sole purpose in games was to get to the end of the level. Along the way, you have your handy dandy "push B and an electric ball with shoot out" thing, which you can use to push buttons (activating short cuts) or shoot at Purple Lums, which creates an electric vine which you can swing with. It reminded me a lot of another Ubi Soft game, Tarzan: Untamed. In fact, there are quite a few areas that remind me of Tarzan. Sometimes you kind of slide/surf down hills, and I seem to remember doing something very similar to that in Tarzan. Do I care? No, I liked Tarzan. But it is worth noting. In multiplayer, you have various weapons, like in Mario Kart. It's the typical lightning-bolt, steal item, and shield, but my personal favorite is one I absolutely have to mention. I don't know exactly what it's called, but I call it the "Sanity Effect thingy." Yeah, like in Eternal Darkness. Various things can happen to your opponent when this is activated. Sometimes the screen will flip over and the controls will reverse. Other times the colors will invert. Sometimes the screen will zoom in and out. And all this happens with the sound of little children laughing. It's crazy cool. There is another variation on the Race Mode, in which you and a friend (or computer, if you have no friends) race and try to get to a checkpoint six seconds ahead of the other player. It sounds easy, but it's not. To get a six second lead, you got to be busting it. You gotta basically run a perfect round, catching all the shortcuts along the way and sometime being nasty by shooting a button that'll block the path behind you (tee hee hee). Seriously, this provides some challenge. My first time out, it took me over ten laps to finally get enough of a lead (and there are like four checkpoints in one lap).

The other mode is Battle Mode. In it, you and a friend (or computer) duke it out with various cool weapons, Battle Royale style. I guess it'd help if I knew what Battle Royale meant, or even if there was a "style" to it, but at this point, just go with me. Truthfully, I'd rather just play Goldeneye. For every hit you get, you get one point, and you lose a life after five hits. If you hit someone, they can't do anything for a split second, so you can hit ‘em again. This mode basically leads itself wide open to the "cheap shots" as I call them. I am angered by cheap shots. The other Battle Mode is the Freeze Fight, and this is the best part of the game, in my opinion, especially with friends. In it, you're working in the Battle Arena maps, you have to rush to catch the Lum (it's flashing somewhere in the map). It's kind of like "Capture the Flag" only there's only one flag and everybody mad dashes to get to it. But the genius of it comes in having only one weapon, the freeze ball, which freezes you for about two seconds. So, if you're ahead in the dash to catch the lum, you're screwed, because somebody will freeze you and steal the lum. So the trick is to stay barely behind and freeze at the last second. And sometimes, you'll think you're all in the clear and no ones around, and your friend will dive bomb you from above, freeze you, take the lum, and run. Many an, "Ooooooooooohhhhhh, SNAP!" was said in my home tonight. It's so amazingly exciting.

Playing multiplayer is awesome, but I can only kind of say the same of the single-player experience. Nothing recreates the feeling of true competition. You can't taunt the television screen, you can't cheer when you when, and you can't let out a big, "Ooooooooooohhhhhh, SNAP!" by yourself. It's just not the same.

The Graphics

Upon loading up, I noticed that this games bears a striking resemblance to Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers in the menu and FMV departments. I liked Donald Duck, so that was no skin off my back. I then encountered, and continued to encounter, the Ubi Soft GCN staple: loading times. To quote my friend Archie, "Nintendo shouldn't have loading times!" Between every race and battle, the same obnoxious loading screen popped up with the weird naked fairy thing. Sometimes the green loading bar would fill completely, and it'd take ten seconds before it'd do anything. As for the actual in-grame graphics, they seem to be quite nice. I noticed a few bits of slowdown, but nothing that truly bothered me to a major extent. This usually happens on the levels that try to bust out some special effects. One especially cool level had rain flying towards the screen, with some of it actually depositing itself on the screen, like water on a windshield. It's absolutely gorgeous. On the whole, it's not something you're gonna be showing to your friends and saying, "Hey, can your X-box do this?"

Sound

Oh, this game has some phat beats. Not really, but the Rayman theme gives me chills just thinking about the Hot Top Volcano theme. Hula monga, hula monga, hula monga! Okay, maybe not. When I listened very closely, I could hear the whir of Rayman's propeller ears. The nicest touch of the entire game was, whoever's in the lead, that's whose theme is playing. So needless to say, I heard a lot of Rayman's theme at the beginning, which is really easy, and then proceeded to hear my rival's theme a little too much.

This game gets an N-Philes score of C+.

It's a really fun game, but I don't know if I could justify the purchase. It's the best darn party game out there, until Mario Party 4 ships, which is, oh yeah, today. I don't particularly understand the reasoning behind selling this as a standalone game. If it was the multiplayer mode of Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc (launching Spring 2003), then by all means, I'd be hailing it as the best multiplayer mode ever (next to Goldeneye). I highly suggest a rental, and try to get all your friends together to play it.

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