Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party for Nintendo DS Reviews by Gamers

An hour into Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, I spotted Rayman in a cut-scene and found his inclusion, even just a cameo, notably disappointing. Is it fair that Ubisoft's once-popular platforming hero has fallen so far from grace in my eyes? Maybe not. It is, nevertheless, true, and the company's own Rabbids are partially to blame. When Atari Jaguar was battling for a piece of the videogame pie, Rayman was cool, his limbless body jumping from ledge to ledge with then-fluid animation, but as the years have passed, I've found the character less and less interesting. Thankfully, his replacements, the evil Rabbids, are more than worthy successors, both well-designed and primed for comedic impact. That is something that remains true, even as the publisher releases the third game in the Rabbids series. It's a sequel that clings to the same jokes -- specifically, Rabbids screaming "Bwah!" wildly as they run about with crazed looks of simultaneous panic, rage and confusion on their faces. It's also a project that proudly puts forth dozens of new mini-games whose concepts blaze past the arbitrary and border of the disturbing. And the developer has with this latest title tried for fresher gameplay designs and also minis that make use of the Wii Balance Board for varying results; incidentally, TV Party is the first Wii offering that enables you to control an experience with your buttocks -- and how's that for a selling point?

There's no getting past the point that with each iteration, the novelty of a mini-game compilation wears a little thinner and TV Party does magically sidestep this truth. If you're expecting a revolutionary experience, look elsewhere -- this sequel tightly grips the proven formula, one which has aged with every year. And yet, with so many offensively bad mini-game-infested titles running rampant on Wii, TV Party still feels a cut above, its humor well played and some of its gameplay scenarios still enjoyable. This year's title also puts a newfound emphasis on the multiplayer mode, as most of the included minis are compatible with four-player same or split-screen competitions, a must for any party title, and there's even an eight-player turn-based option, also welcomed.

In TV Party, Rayman finds himself trapped and forced to watch critter television, a week's worth of network programming by the Rabbids. This is, of course, the setup for the 50 mini-games that follow and while I actually do like the premise and some of the jokes and spoofs that ensue, I've also found the overall execution a little lackluster. Ubisoft has chosen to present many of the cinematics by way of a retro 2D style that I feel misses the mark as it does not mesh well with the rest of the experience, either the television displays that show mini-game previews or the gameplay scenarios themselves, most of them polygonal 3D. That, and there are noticeable load screens between menus and mini-games, which needn't happen -- not when much bigger Wii projects run without a single pause. Meanwhile, the game's widescreen mode does not run at full resolution (those pesky black bars remain on the sides of the screen) and there are occasional framerate hiccups in-game.

Still, if you're looking for a few good laughs, you will find the humor still in tact and perhaps even a little more developed thanks to the freedom that the TV theme has afforded the developer. As you progress through the various channels and see new programming, all gateways to new challenges, you will find yourself playing through fun spoofs of popular TV and movies, from trashy reality shows to Rabbid-ized takes of Night of the Living Dead, The Untouchables and more. There's good comedy to be found and it's all surrounded by the nearly hypnotic display of Rabbids, who are (despite the unabashed borrowing of old jokes) still funny. And so are the scenarios they are constantly falling into, be it a truly warped version of wrestling, a fun play on Star Wars, monster tractor racing, or a disturbing version of snowboarding.

I felt that many of the mini-games in Rabbids 2 were ill-developed throwaway offerings. I think that the selection comprising TV Party is much better -- closer to the original in regard to diversity, comedy and execution. There are, of course, the selectables that can be played with the Balance Board. The aforementioned snowboarding spoof in which a rabbid inexplicably rides a bull down an icy mountain path filled with slopes and barriers controls well and exudes surrealism at every carve and jump. In another, a play on Godzilla, you delicately lean on the balance board to send a stream of fire at nearby buildings and advancing infantry. It appears as though you are urinating this fire, not breathing it. I'm not sure that playing with the Balance Board is more immersive, but it's definitely novel.



Additionally, most of the 50-something minis make good use of the Wii remote in nunchuk. Rabbids 2 took a giant misstep with its pre-rendered shooter stages, which all ran sluggishly. TV Party is thankfully back on track with polygonal spoofs and a new focus -- it's no longer about shooting as many Rabbids as possible, but hitting the right targets, which continually pop in and out of the screen and hide behind obstructions. There's a lot of fun to be had with these on-rails modes alone, now in greater abundance. And I also like the minis that challenge you to draw on-screen with the Wii remote or to turn it classically and race through tracks using some kind of crazy vehicle. Even some very simple challenges, like Mega Balls, in which you simply waggle the Wii remote to bounce on-screen balls around, collecting pellets, provide good entertainment, particularly when gaming with friends.

Like always, though, there are some junkers, most of which have you shaking your Wii remote and nunchuk enthusiastically to accomplish some stupid goal. I understand that Ubisoft needs to utilize multiple control configurations so that the gameplay experiences feel dissimilar -- the problem is that some of the additions are uninspired, to say the least. Take, for example, a driving game that requires you pump the Wii remote up and down continuously to advance. I don't want to shake my way through a stage like an epileptic on PCP, thank you very much. That's not fun. Thankfully, the ho-hum minis are fewer and farther between than they were in the prequel, which is some level of progress.

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