 Preview By: Matt Flanagan |
Developer: | Ubisoft Montpellier |
| Publisher: | Ubisoft | |
| Genre: | Action | |
| ESRB: | Rating Pending | |
| # Of Players: | 1-4 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | TBA | |
| Estimated Release: | 11/14/2006 |
Rayman’s always been the star of some strange games, which isn't really surprising. A game that stars a collection of floating body parts as its hero can’t possibly hope to be normal. Anyway, Rayman will be making his latest appearance on the Nintendo Wii as an exclusive next-gen launch title (with PS3 and Xbox 360 versions arriving next year sometime), and from what Ubisoft has revealed the game promises to be Rayman's most bizarre game yet.
Originally thought to be a straight-up platformer, it turns out what we’re actually getting is more of a party game. There are over 80 mini-games in Raving Rabbids, which range from first-person shooting games to racing games to some downright crazy micro-games (the kind of simple games you find in WarioWare). The video below alone shows a wide variety of mini-games, including spraying Rabbids to fill up their goggles with orange liquid, whacking 'em on the head with a shovel Whack-A-Mole style, Flatout 2 esque Rabbid flinging, cow racing, and more. The images available hint at other types of gameplay, including even some Splinter Cell type stealth action. There appear to be enough different game types to keep you busy for a while, and replay value should definitely be high when you look at the variety in the games featured.
Mini-Game Footage: 
(.wmv/12.7 MB/640x360)
(.wmv/45.4 MB/1280x720)
The storyline of Raving Rabbids revolves around Rayman, who is captured along with the rest of earth's people by some world-invading none-too-bright Rabbit aliens known as Rabbids. The Rabbids have actually lived amongst us for centuries, emerging from the ground War of the Worlds style to enslave humanity. The story centers on Rayman’s efforts to escape from his slavery and free humanity by dancing and doing other weird stuff until the Rabbids start to view him as a celebrity, which of course will give him the power to save us all. The mini-game tasks you’ll have to perform to become popular with the Rabbids are ridiculous, but funny, and the game should definitely make those of you who don’t mind a little stupidity laugh.
The game also comes with a FPS multiplayer mode, which can be played between four opponents controlled by players or the CPU, or any combination of the two. From what they’ve shown it looks like it will be worthwhile, but they haven’t really shown us enough of that to be able to draw a definite opinion one way or the other.
Personally, I’ve got high hopes for this game. The game’s producers have made it clear that they’re going to try to use the Wii controller’s features in as many ways as possible, and given the variety that we’re seeing already in the types of mini-games I think it’s safe to say that Rayman Raving Rabbids will be a solid single-player and party game. While there will be ports of this game in the works for other systems, everything other than the DS, GBA, and PC are due out sometime next year since the game’s development team is currently working exclusively on the Wii version for consoles. Even so, the Wii’s unique controller design means that the game will be vastly different regardless. So if you plan on waiting for a version on your PS3 or Xbox 360, you still might want to give the Wii version a look as well.
Posted: 2006-09-25 09:09:02 PST