Rayman Raving Rabbids: First Play - 33% Complete

I was never a fan of party games until inserting that WarioWare minidisk into the waiting maw of my Nintendo GameCube. Wow, I never thought picking your nose could be this fun! Actually, it’s not the silly minigames that make those WarioWare titles slither their way into your brain like an alien parasite, but more the social interaction they create. Unfortunately, Raving Rabbids misses this point completely and focuses far too heavily on single player mode.

Essentially, the WarioWare collections were most similar to a gaming version of trivial pursuit. A simplistic and tossed together minigame pops up for a few seconds and you’ve got to figure out the solution while your friends needle you. Raving Rabbids breaks this mechanic immediately by offering detailed explanations for every minigame. How does this affect play? First, it brings the focus heavily onto the individual gameplay of the minigames, instead of that question and answer feel that WarioWare nailed so perfectly. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially in cases where the minigame is pure genius. However, when the minigame sucks, I couldn’t fall back to that nervous joy of not knowing what the heck to do. Also, the added focus on gameplay substantially raised the required production value per game and drastically reduced the number of games Ubisoft was able to include.

Another big negative for Raving Rabbids is that multiplayer is completely unplayable out of the box. We broke out the game last weekend while foaming with joy at the prospect of jumping around like deranged crossing guards. That’s when we discovered that none of the minigames are unlocked for multiplayer by default. Oh well, back to Wii Sports then. This is a horrible idea for several reasons. The main problem with these required unlocks is that I’m completely missing out on the social aspect of the party game while playing it quest style. Also, by the time I make it through the whole campaign I’ll be a master at all of the repeating minigames and no one will want to play with me due to getting whooped. There is also a real possibility that I’ll be bored with Raving Rabbids by the time I make it far enough to unlock a decent multiplayer match.

The story behind Raving Rabbids’ campaign mode is simple. Rayman’s froggish friends have been kidnapped by rabbits. I was captured also and forced to play out their fiendish minigames, gladiator style. The arena has seating for thousands of rabbits, none of which appear to like me very much. I can tell. They boo even when I win. I never know what to expect when walking into the next challenge, nunchuk poised for bopping. That is, I don’t know until the helpful prerendered bunny explains it all to me.

Here is an example of one of the minigames that’s pure genius. I’m flying a bat around a small Crytek looking island, searching for some lost piglets. My bat flies quite responsivly via my deftly titled Wiimote. I am the bat wrangler. For some reason, I can also swat my bat with a fly swatter, via the previously mentioned nunchuk bopping. This causes him to buzz off at insane and practically uncontrollable speeds. This is very helpful when the timer is clicking down towards zero. The slippery piglets must be returned to their pen before time runs out, and don’t think I could just memorize their locations, either. They spawn in randomly each time the game is restarted.

Another minigame I fell instantly in love with has me guiding a neural impulse through a particularly dense bunny brain, in the hopes that she’ll be able to dodge the bludgeon of a neighboring rabbit. This game is also controlled by Wiimote tilting, which happens to be fantastically responsive. I tilt the open bunny head until the neural message finally rolls to its destination. If the time runs out, my poor bunny gets clubbed. Ouch.

Each day of gladiatoring is topped off with a round of what can only be described as a first person rail shooter. Being a huge fan of both Duck Hunt and Operation Wolf, I raised my plunger launching pistol with a giant grin on my face and charged forth. Bunnies proceeded to attack from every direction, including leaping out from beach bathroom stalls. Reloading is accomplished with a satisfying nunchuk nudge, while aiming works flawlessly via the mouse functionality of the Wiimote. I stuck a lot of plungers to a lot of Raving Rabbids, and that grin never left my face. Favorite moment: my son Elijah calling me Robin Hood as I skillfully managed to shoot several enemy plungers out of the sky.

Unfortunately, not all of the minigames are as much fun as these, including several versions of whack-a-mole, and many downright annoying “wiggle Wiimote as fast as possible” games. Perhaps these would be more fun with a little more giggling and ribbing from my friends. Oh wait, my friends aren’t here any more. (Cue the crickets chirping) Tune into my next play rating to find out what Raving Rabbids feels like as a real party game after I’ve gotten a little farther in my epic quest to free my froggish friends.