Rayman Raving Rabbids 2

Zany, plunger-wielding Rabbids have invaded the Earth, mobilized at the Mall and gone on vacation. Dropping any pretense of a plot, Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 is purely a party game, and a rather short one at that. Despite vast improvements in loading time for mini-games (the original Raving Rabbids load time was long enough to fetch tea and crumpets, put the laundry in, start up the dishwasher and have a go at following Wiles’ Fermat’s Last Theorem proof) Raving Rabbids 2 is both less compelling and less raving mad than its predecessor.

First Impressions by Tanx
Video Game Reviews by a Very Busy Math Teacher

Game: Rayman Raving Rabbids 2
Platform: Wii
Played For: 12 hours

I’m not quite sure why the eponymous hero Rayman is in this game to begin with. You have to feel a little sorry for him, as he’s been completely eclipsed by the popularity of his foes. Rabbids are the vehicle behind these new hastily released offerings (another sequel is scheduled to release soon) possibly making them the most popular video game villains this side of Shodan (I’d love to see Rabbids do a System Shock 2 impression.) Unfortunately, the Rabbids themselves have lost their edge this time around… in Rayman 1 the psychotic little fellas had a subversive feel of danger to them. As Rayman faced a hostile arena audience of Rabbids, you had the sense that they would tear you to pieces (with kitchen wares) if you didn’t win them over… a process that gave a satisfying extra motivation for success in the creative, oft ridiculous mini-games.

In this second game the Rabbids are much more plushie and wide-appeal. Having lost some of their psychopathic, feral quality they come across more as misguided mallrat teenagers crossed with a Warner Bros “bop each other on the head” aesthetic. While they still have comic moments (in fact, you are treated to a brief vignette before every new task) …the extreme quirkiness of the first game has been boiled down to a system of clichés.

That being said, a few of the mini-games offered are still a lot of fun. My Fiancée was up for a few rounds of Rabbid-induced competition, and the two of us went bunny-ear to bunny-ear in demanding challenges like finding and force-feeding mysterious potions to a Franken bunny or shaking a fizzy cola and trying to produce the largest burp. (As you might expect of plunger-wielding plushies, scatological and body-process humor are well-represented, making the game a sophomoric success.)

The hot potato mini-games like the riff on American football or the whole “spider-bunny” scene were particularly fun to play, but more often than not the challenges started to leave us a bit cold. It felt like there was a lot less innovation and variety to the mini-games… where are the cloud dives and cow tossing, the cerebral ball tilt and the slam the doors on the Rabbids to keep them in the latrine games? Here a lot of the challenges come across the same way… and you can only see who can shake the Wii-mote the fastest or the longest so many times before you begin to remember you’d still like the use of your wrist when you’re sixty-five. Even the shooting gallery plunger-gun levels felt less creative in this incarnation, with their substitution of real world backgrounds rather than jokey cartoon movie themes. And the attempts to emulate Rock Band were just kind of blah… the synchronized dancing Rabbids of the first game were much more fun to watch.

In the end Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 is an inferior product to Rayman Raving Rabbids 1 in every way… it is the game for Soccer Moms to purchase for their 12 year old children because they don’t know better and video game store clerks only recommend what’s new. Unless you are a die hard fan who must have all things Rabbid (see accompanying picture), do yourself a favor and play Rayman 1 instead. This particular world tour is not the kind of vacation you’re going to regret missing.

Will I play it more: aaaaahhhhhhhhhggggggggg!!!!! No.