14 DAY TRIAL // 
Ever since 1995 Rayman is the mascot of Ubisoft. The limbless cartoon like character has been facing the forces of evil ever since and is now at his forth adventure. First the little guy had to defend his home against Mr. Dark in Rayman. The next step put him up against Admiral Razorbeard in Rayman 2. In Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc he fought Andre, the leader of the Black Lums. But the evil events don't end just yet and a new challenge is set for our hero in Rayman Raving Rabidds.
Developed by Ubisoft Montpellier Studio, this forth addition to the series introduces the new face of the dark side as the fictional race of maniac anthropomorphic bunnies called rabbids. The creator Michel Ancel, who supervised the current project, described the bunnies as "vicious, but at the same time totally stupid". These are characters just as unforgettable as Rayman and they can easily be awarded the title of the greatest source of fun in Rayman Raving Rabbids.
Story and Concept There are three game modes available: Story Mode, Score Mode and Family Mode. But in order to play any of the other, you first need to unlock the levels that please you in Story Mode. And the story goes something like this. One day, as Rayman and his little baby Globox friends were having a picnic, the earth starts trembling and the tiny blue creatures are swallowed by instant appearing holes in the ground. The kidnappers quickly reveal themselves - it's the raving rabbids and their humongous red-eyed black furry keeper. The keeper - Serguei - grabs Rayman and now the bunny fun can begin. The white brainless rabbids seem to be having tons of fun by attending sort of a gladiator arena. Of course blood is out of the question (after all, they can easily hit each other with a bat over the head) so a series of minigames were designed for the amusement of the white masses.
Every day Rayman has to compete in at least four of the five challenges the rabbids have in mind to win their most esteemed trophy - a plunger. While our hero wasn't really impressed by the award at first, he gets the perfect idea of escaping the rabid prison by using the plungers as a ladder leading to a window - the only way out.
The whole story is about completing the minigames challenges and trying to free as many baby Globoxes as possible. Rayman will slowly turn into a genuine General Maximus (such as Russell Crowe in The Gladiator) that the crowds (the rabbids) grow to love and even appreciate as a star. All he can hope for is that he gains enough popularity to save his world and his friends from the draconic rodents.
The Score Mode is about doing your best at getting into the highscore bunny chart and outmatching not only yourself but also the computer generated scores. The Family Mode introduces the multiplayer option of the game - while you control some of Rayman's actions your friend (or relative) controls the rest of his actions. In order to do that you'll need to combine the actions you can take using the mouse and the keyboard combinations. If you desperately desire even more rabbids challenges be sure to check up on the official site for six short minigames that also give you hidden in game content (once you register).
Gameplay First of all, you should keep in mind that Rayman Raving Rabbids is primary the the launch title for Nintendo's Wii console, so the controls were designed to best suit the Wiimote. Fortunately the mouse and the keyboard that had to take over in the PC version managed not to spoil the fun, in fact some of the minigames actually got a lot easier (unlike the PS version that complicated things).
So Rayman Raving Rabbids is all about ludicrous minigames (75 of them to be exact). Each of the fifteen days (levels) that Rayman has to attend the rabbids' arena in order to gain enough plungers to escape features four minigames and a final boss minigame. There is quite a variety of games to choose from. There are sports inspired ones, racing, shooting, dancing and even piece up together minigames.
The sports category features challenges such as throw the cow (instead of a hammer), launch the super bunny (gain enough speed, by alternatively hitting two keys, to send the big non-flying fellow as far as possible - and don't think it's really not such a big deal, this is a heavy bunny) or milk the cow. The Bunnies Love to Dance kind of games were the most fun as you have to keep up with a song and make Rayman dance while slapping the rabbids coming from both left and right stage entries (not necessarily in the same time, but always following the beat of the song). Here the player's reflexes are tested the best and more, you're rewarded with great music and if you manage a good enough score a bunny will start dancing along. So here's the place to really shine as a star - it's your stage. It is very likely that the developers thought of this minigame to be extremely captivating as every level features one such challenge.
The leading the mouse on the mouse pad to draw food shapes was? well, impossible to get at least one perfect score, but it was entertaining nevertheless as once you draw the food a hungry rabbid immediately eats it up (I'm just glad only two or three such challenges were all through the story mode). The Rebuild the Bunny game was almost maddening. Be sure you keep any useful piece of paper close to get some clues as where to place the rabbid pieces on the screen to reconstruct the image (I'm not sure if I'm just lucky or if the developers considered as hard the same challenges I did, but the Bunny Reconstruction challenge only features twice in the Story Mode).
There were two more minigames that featured only twice and they both dealt with taking care of pigs. One of them was about retrieving the pink creatures from a beach and carrying them back to their farm while flying on a bat and all against the timer. While this seemed a great idea, unfortunately the limitations of the mouse and keyboard had a hard word to say and pretty much spoiled most of the fun. The other game was about taking a baby pig back to his mother at the other end of a small maze. The catch was that rabbids were buried in some alleys trying to fry the piggy. While sensing the peril, the little beast would get all freaked out and squeak like crazy. Yet the rabbid crowds would never stop cheering and screaming so I rarely managed to notice the scared pig's screams.
I got to the conclusion that rabbids can't really hold still. They're favorite time to mess with the camera was exactly as Rayman was Rope Jumping. It wasn't enough that those giants never rolled the rope the same way, the bunny had to get a close-up just as I was trying to keep in the crazy rhythm. Another thing I've learned about rabbids is that they enjoy their privacy while in the closest over at the beach - I had to slam door for about a minute and a half just so I don't get my face hit by a plunger (I wonder where they get all these plungers). Further studies on the restless rabbids show that if you fill their diving goggles with carrot juice they kind of drown (oh, evil me!). I even had to teach them to react to another's brutal actions by guiding a small silvery ball through the maze in their brain.
Well, the white bunnies may not be so bright, but they can sure race on those warthogs. They showed me how to do it too, and it was a thrilling experience, especially since this was a boss kind of minigame. The other boss minigame was a Shoot the Bunnies game. The setting for these was either a Wild West theme or a theme from the Horror Cemetery. Here I discovered there are more than one kinds of rabbids and that they managed to create some just as crazy as them robots. So I load my weapon with plungers and set off to deal with Splinter Cell specially trained bunnies that quickly dodged my plungers, Red Skins like bunnies that wore tin armor made up of pans, dynamite gift giving bunnies and the huge wrestling like grey bunnies. Why did I engage in this paintball like game? Well, first of all because this was the only way to save one more of my Globox friends and second of all, because it's tons of fun. There are still some other minigames available, but you may want to discover those for yourself.
Video Having in mind the arcade aspect of the game it's obvious that the limbless mascot couldn't really benefit from cutting edge graphics so the overall aspect of the game is based on being funny above all. There are a few most welcomed twists however. In example, once Rayman wins minigame after minigame, he unlocks cool new looks that include the Granny, Punk, Pop, Rock, Gangsta and the Goth outfit. Football fans will need a little patience until they unlock the Raymaninho costume (doesn't that sound almost like Ronaldinho?).
It's really hard to cut down on the grade for the visual aspect as the whole point of the game is to have fun, and the cartoon blood-free arena created in Rayman Raving Rabbids suits this purpose wonderfully. Besides you should also keep in mind that is a game intended to amuse children in the first place so keeping the minigames as easy as possible was much more important than free-roaming in the shooting stages or highly polished textures in the sport events.
Sound Along with having tons of fun, the soundtrack of the game was the greatest asset of the game. While the usual minigames and the arena challenge selection area only benefit from the cheering of the rabbids and occasionally "hey" or "wow" can be distinguished, the music really shines when it comes to the Bunnies Love to Dance games. Licensed versions of famous songs like Misirlou (Pulp Fiction), Girls Just Want to Have Fun or La Bamba can be enjoyed (and heard over and over again at the Jukebox in Rayman's prison cell). I also particularly found very amusing the bunny screams as you hit them with the plunger.
Multiplayer Of course the fun you have with the PC version of Rayman Raving Rabbids is not even close in multiplayer to the experience you get by simply using the Wiimote. Yet the multiplayer minigames are fun especially if the game is designed for you to share Rayman's actions with a friend. The turn based multiplayer games are pretty much as good as the single player mode is, but don't really feel like multiplayer - it's just get the highest score.
Conclusion Please read this carefully. Rayman Raving Rabbids is a collection of 75 funny minigames that star Ubisoft's mascot Rayman and loads of psychotic plunger loving bunnies that have a soft spot for dancing. If you're looking for top of the edge graphics try Oblivion or better yet wait for Unreal engine 3 to be launched in Unreal Tournament 2007 and disregard the visual grade for Rayman - it's all cartoon. If you're looking for breathtaking voice acting try Reservoir Dogs or the Sam and Max series if you still want to have fun. If you want freedom, then try Morrowind. But if you want to cheer up your life with quick minigames when you come back tired from work (or school) then you definitely want to try Rayman Raving Rabbids. Great addition to the series! Thumb's up for Ubisoft Montpellier.
