The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Rayman

And yet another Ubisoft game for today.
This game was released in 1995, WAY before the Splinter Cells, Beyond Good and Evils and Princes of Persia of today, when Ubisoft was still a relatively small company with a rather uninteresting logo.



Still I wouldn't be the die hard gamer that I am, if I hadn't discovered this talented company WAY before anyone else, because I'm cool and the rest of the world is not. Did I mention I invented sliced bread?

Back in the SNES and PSX days, I was the kind of person who just played every game he could get his hands on, and if he had to, he would rent them. I stopped doing that when I first went to Japan, where I found out you can actually BUY games at rental prices, and besides, I now have Japanese consoles mostly, and modding is not always an option, so I'm stuck with Japanese junk anyway.
In any case, this is one of those games I just decided to rent for a couple of days, because it looked nice, and I like platformers, so what the hey.

And it IS lovely. Ubisoft's talent is unmistakeable, with even an old title like this still looking very good, great colorful cartoony graphics, with lots of detail, a great and varied soundtrack, although the tracks are WAY too short, and a likeable mascotte, in the shape of the Limb Flinging Rayman.

The ever-so-important story is that The Evil Mr. Dark has stolen the Great Protoon, which keeps balance in the world, and kidnapped all the Electoons which orbit around it, presumably because they're annoyingly cute. So, now it's up to Rayman to retrieve the Protoon and rescue all those little pink buggers from their cages, to once again restore harmony to the world, and maybe get laid, if he's lucky.
At your disposal are your fists, and.......well, that's about it. You can jump, and you can send off a flying punch, and that's the gist of your attacks, so there's no wondering why the game's manual is thinner than Kate Moss.
It's also equally likely to kill you if you try to eat it.

In the course of the game, you will learn some new skills like hanging off ledges, running and using your hair as a helicopter (that's not a joke).
There are around 20 levels in the game, and each level is built up of several stages, most of which are pretty long. Every level has 6 cages with Electoons you have to find, and some of them are hidden very well.
You HAVE to find ALL cages in EVERY stage if you want to get to the final stage, which makes the game rather cumbersome, since a lot of cages are INVISIBLE.
That is to say, you have to trigger their appearance by touching some invisible triggering point by walking or jumping over it. Usually, some clever and logical thinking will lead you to finding these triggering points, but it's very easy to miss one, meaning you'll have to replay an entire stage over and over again, just to find that one elusive cage, IF you want to see the ending.
On the other hand, the ending is really not worth the bother anyway, so you might just stop without playing the final stage.

In fact, you might even stop long before that because, nauseatingly cute graphics and cuddly charaters notwithstanding, this game is frigging HARD. In a very definitely FRUSTRATING way.
Seriously, for a game that is obviously aimed at kids, this is INSANELY difficult.
If you want your kids to go even more mental than they already are, and start breaking things around the house and beating you up, give them this game.
It's the effect it had on me, and I'M 26.

Controls can be frustrating, and some jumps require absolute pixel precise timing and a lot of stuff will kill you in one hit.
A Platform game wouldn't be a platform game without some kind of collectable (except for the brilliant Prince of Persia of course, but Ubisoft didn't realise that until MUCH later), and Rayman has "Tings" to collect. 100 Tings constitutes an extra life, in a total surprise of Gaming logic, but if you die you'll lose ALL the Tings you collected so far. So basically, Ubisoft gives you the finger by saying "You died hunh? Well, just to punish you, we're going to make getting an extra life EVEN harder for you". Bastards.
Still, the main difficulty lies in frustrating controls, and very cheap situations that require lightning reflexes, perfect timing and precision, and often even blind leaps. Good Job, Ubisoft. And this is aimed at young kids you say? Brilliant!

Seasoned gamers will find a good challenge here, if they can stand the bright colors and suffocating happiness (and blinding frustration), and if you persist, you'll find a very decent platform game here, with some nice tricks up its sleeve.
This is one of those games I decided to buy because I liked the music more than anything else though, but it's still entertaining for as long as it lasts.
Children need definitely not apply though, which is kinda stupid, considering the subject matter.
A 7.5 seems about right.

posted by Ingen! @ 2:35 PM