Bunnies Don't Forceboat- But They Can Dance! Rayman: Raving Rabbids Discussion! DAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!

The crazy humor. The insane bunnies. Easily the most anticipated third party Wii launch title after Red Steel. I can't wait to toss this in and just enjoy the plunger-hurling hilarity (and, really, for an industry born from the exploits of a plumber, there really is quite a dearth of games featuring plunger-hurling hilarity...).

Come, bask in it's glory.

[image=http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/744/744311/rayman-raving-rabbids-20061106020638970.jpg] [image=http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/736/736887/rayman-raving-rabbids-20061002052940915.jpg] [image=http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/725/725810/rayman-raving-rabbids-20060815054236778.jpg]
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Well? Start basking!

DAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

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Max does, in fact, win.

It's by the original creator of Rayman (unlike recent titles) and Beyond Good & Evil, though it's less of a platformer than previous games (the DS version is more platformer though) and more of a series of 70+ mini-games strung together by the concept (though deeper gameplay than, say, Wario Ware).

The evil bunnies have risen up, taken over the world and enslaved Rayman. He then starts performing in a series of competitions for their enjoyment, which increases his popularity among them (kinda like Gladiator) and helps build towards his plans of escape.

Levels seem to vary from shooter-style levels where you blast rushing bunnies with plungers, to cow-throwing levels, to simon says-esque levels, to keep-the-bunnies-outhouse-doors-from-staying-open levels, to flying stages, to levels where you have to pump a stream of carrot juice into the masks of an oncoming army of scuba bunnies, to drown them before they storm your beachfront cocktail stand.

And it'll all be hilarious :

Some videos: http://media.wii.ign.com/media/821/821585/vids_1.html

 

I'm loving this game, the various games are really fun, but still challenging (aiming the cow-tossing one gave me problems upon subsequent tries despite nailing it during my first). The one where you gotta drown the bunnies with orange juice pumped out into their scuba masks is TOUGH. Mainly because your nunchuck arm gets really tired from constantly pumping- I had a real tough time making it past the 1 minute mark, but on a few tries I've managed to squeeze within half a second to 2 seconds of the 1:20 target time.

The running level also gives your arms a good burn- between this and Wii Sports, I'll think I'll be able to offset my inability to afford going to the gym for the next few months...

And, I'm not sure if it's a stylistic choice or merely a technical limitation, but the jumpy Rabbid animations for the colliseum audience during wide shots actually adds to the feel of the game, IMO, rather than detract from it (if it is, indeed, a framerate issue).

Oh, and those bastards cheat. Popping up and blocking the screen during the jumprope level = evil.

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It's a Wii release only, as far as I know- there's no way most of these games could really work on any other platform.

Perhaps your confusing it with one of the prior Rayman games? Those were platformers and had multiplatform releases, IIRC.

I haven't really taken note of the score so far- the songs you earn in the game stick out more (that song used in Pulp Fiction, for example).

 

Huh, go figure. I actually heard about a DS or GBA port that was more of a straight platformer like the rest of the series, but not the others.

I suppose some of the games could translate to the PS3's sixaxis, and any pointer/aiming style games could be probably handled by dual analogs (but they'd definitely have to slow down the rate of events to compensate for the slower response time) or a mouse. But I just can't see some games being trabslated to a controller or PC/mouse without it coming across as "Mario Party-lite", and certainly those games that can be translated well would seem to only be appropriate for only some platforms and not others (ie: motion-tilt-using ones would be better for PS3, but pointer/aiming ones would be more appropriate for a PC mouse, etc) and certainlt not all at once.

Perhaps these others will be more akin to an original title using a similar concept to the Wii game, ala the GBA platformer?

 

It's probably inevitable if the Wii manages to catch on like it seems it will. Just need some kind of USB sensor bar, really. However, I doubt there's one about to come out that only Ubisoft is aware of