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Rayman Raving Rabbids

Posted January 15th 2007 by Ben Wood.

Videogames have yet to crack the comedy genre. For every Conker's Bad Fur Day and Mario & Luigi, there are dozens if not hundreds of games that take themselves far too seriously. Over the summer before the Wii launch, Ubisoft had released a series of commercial-like videos to promote Rayman Raving Rabbids, that clearly showed us that the game would slant towards humor, possibly even poking fun at other games, as the Scary Movie franchise does to popular films. But the revelation that Rayman would give up his platforming roots in order to test minigame waters split gamers; half of them could care less, while the other half swore to avoid Rayman Raving Rabbids at all costs.

For those still on the fence, you needn't worry. Michel Ancel and his Ubisoft Montpellier team have crafted a masterpiece.

Rayman Raving Rabbids, in many ways, isn't about Rayman at all. It's about the hilariously random bunnies that invade Rayman's poor planet. They literally pop out of nowhere while our limbless hero is picnicking with a bunch of Globoxes (little frog things that may be the Rayman's best friend's offspring). For some reason unbeknownst to everyone save Ancel, they kidnap the Globoxes and force Rayman to save them in gladiator-style challenges. After completing three minigames, an optional dance minigame, and an extended challenge, you win a plunger and move onto the next series of games. And that's all there is to the story mode, along with a pretty disappointing ending.

Depending on how you count the minigames, there are anywhere between 30 completely unique challenges to over 70 challenges with variations on one another and varying difficulty. And yes, all the minigames are locked. You unlock more as you complete them in story mode, which means you must complete the story mode in order to unlock all the minigames. Fortunately the average person can breeze through the story mode in a couple of sittings, upon which time Score mode becomes the main draw of the game.

Score mode is the meat and potatoes of the Raving Rabbids experience. The minigames are set up in an arcade style where endurance is rewarded with a record in the top three scores or times for any given minigame. This can easily turn into an intense competition when playing with other players. Depending on how well you do in this mode, you can earn points that unlock all kinds of random extras, from new challenges to art galleries, as well as those aforementioned web videos.

A party game's worth is weighed entirely on its minigames; if they aren't fun or diverse, there's no real point in playing. Fortunately Rayman and the Rabbids put on a good show. The minigames themselves are a lot of fun, whether you're slamming toilet stall doors, whacking bunnies with shovels, feeding pizza and cinderblocks to the bunnies, or kicking them into a soccer net. Even the minigames wouldn't be too exciting, like brain poking and knife throwing, are made fun with their wacky premises and solid controls. There are only a couple of challenges (tuning a choir and delivering an explosive gift come to mind) that probably should have gone back to the drawing board.

The game tends to focus on two particular challenges, extended minigames that I would describe as macrogames. Both the dance challenges, which play like Donkey Konga but more satisfying, and the on-rails first person plunging levels play a significant role in Rayman. While plungers do feel much more sluggish than bullets, the shooting challenges are very much like an arcade shooter. It's definitely a guilty pleasure to take out all the loony lagomorphs, especially when aiming and firing feel completely natural with the Wii Remote.

In fact, the control stands out as one of the strongest elements of Rayman Raving Rabbids. The developers have used the Wii Remote's motion capabilities in all kinds of ways – floor tilting, flying, pointing, drawing, dragging, aiming, yanking – to give each minigame a different feel. Many of them use pointing as a main component, but what really makes the control work is that Rayman isn't afraid to use the Nunchuk. While this means that multiplayer is more expensive, it also means that the Remote isn't packed with too much responsibility, as was the case with the minigames in Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz. The games play out in a natural way, where the player's hands feel like an extension of the game.

One of the downsides to Rayman Raving Rabbids' multiplayer is that the games weren't all designed to be played simultaneously. Alternating play isn't necessarily bad, but when you factor in the fact that some of the games can last several minutes, it can mean a slower pace of competition.

Rayman is a beautiful game, despite not running in progressive scan; everything is fluid and colorful. The Raving Rabbid universe has a great and comedic sense of style that ranges from Western to 1950s sci-fi and 80's exercise craze settings, populated with cowboy bunnies, Indian bunnies, French maid bunnies, bunnies in afros, Superman bunnies, Sam Fisher bunnies... all kinds of bunnies. In fact, the game's art feels like it was ripped right out of a Warner Bros. cartoon and plastered with rascally rabbids. Elmer Fudd would have a field day.

On top of the art direction and controls, the game's music and sound are exceptional. The bunnies' iconic scream, the moist sounds of squished rabbit brain, the gurgling of a bunny drowning in carrot juice... it all fits perfectly in the animated and comedic world of Rayman Raving Rabbids. The sound of a cow as it's hurled dozens of feet in the air and rolls painfully to a stop can make any animal lover laugh involuntarily. The cream of the aural crop has to be the song remixes featured in the dance stages. The remixes of Hip Hop Horray, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and La Bamba, among others, are just phenomenal in the context of the crazy rabid world.

Heartstopper - DAAAAAAAAAAAH!!

Bunnies can't milk cows, but they know how to throw together a fun game! Michel Ancel and his team have created a tight-knit universe to host some of the wackiest and most unpredictable minigames since Wario Ware. Of the 70 games available, only one or two are disappointments. All of them feel built from the ground up for the Wii's controls. The story mode may be a lacking, but the challenge modes will keep you coming back, whether alone or with a group. Rayman Raving Rabbids might not be a platformer like the series is known for, but it's easily one of the best Wii launch games, and one of the best party game experiences known to man. Raving Rabbids proves that comedy does have a place in videogames, and hopefully laughs in the medium will come more often.

Posted in: Reviews