Rabbids Go Home

Shooting for the moon

After being forced to suffer the previous outing of Rayman's annoying Rabbid friends, the stupidly pointless Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, I wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to get my hands on Ubisoft's latest extension of the Rabbids brand. Having loved the original Rayman games back when they were 2D (and latterly 3D) platformers, I've never bought into the repeated attempts to convince gamers we prefer these 'crazy' Rabbids over good old reliable Rayman.

Thankfully my cynical assumption that Rabbids Go Home would be nothing more than a third subpar collection of Wii mini-games soon proved to be unfairly judgemental. Instead what we have is a disk full to the brim with action platformer goodness that signals something of a return to form for the Rayman universe.

The suitably daft story sees the Rabbids deciding that the moon is their real home and therefore that they should really find a way to get there. Of course being Rabbids rather than rocket scientists they deem that the best way of reaching this lofty goal is to build a huge pile of junk that will allow them to simply climb there. Since us humans are a wasteful lot the resourceful little critters plan on building their stairway to the heavens using objects we've left laying around. This quirky setup serves as a roundabout way of explaining the twisted Supermarket Sweep style gameplay which sees you controlling a pair of Rabbids and their shopping trolley (one pushing, the other sitting inside) in a quest to collect as many objects as possible from each level. All without even a hint of a Dale Winton cameo, sadly.

Controlling your Rabbids and their ever filling trolley is surprisingly intuitive so that before long you're flinging them around the levels with ease. These take place a variety of environments from airports and neighbourhood streets to hospitals and offices; all places humans are likely to have dropped useful junk. Levels aren't all structured the same either - some are on-rails linear affairs while others are far more open. Pleasingly the levels look really nice too, the cartoon styling as always going some way to hiding the shortcomings of Nintendo's hardware.

You'll find the bulk of the all important collectables liberally scattered throughout each level's main pathways with careful exploration often unearthing many others in hidden locations just off the beaten track. Most objects simply require you to run over them to have them added to your trolley, others however require a little more effort. Some objects, speakers for example, are mounded high up on walls requiring you to shoot them down by pointing the Wii remote at the screen and throwing one of your rabbids at them.

Not everything you want to collect has been handily discarded prior to your arrival however. Humans you'll come across sport clothing that can all be added to your collection should you manage to get close enough to them to scare them out of their clothes with a loud scream (not literally you understand, just waggle the Wii remote), underwear thankfully seems scream resistant. Understandably the humans aren't all that keen on having all their clothes, not to mention everything else, stolen from them and get gradually more angry as the game goes on. Before long you'll have to deal with attack dogs and hand thrown bombs as well as good old fashioned fisticuffs in your battle to fill your trolley.

Unfortunately, as fun as all this is it takes a while to really get going. An hour or so in and you'd be forgiven for thinking it's all rather full with levels devoid of any real challenge and little to do bar run from A to B. While a slow start could be justified if it were needed to ease players into a complicated gameplay mechanic there's little here that even a newcomer couldn't grasp in the first ten minutes, meaning such languid pacing runs the risk of putting people off pushing past into the more interesting levels still to come.

Even when things do get going the action can be a little repetitive at times with your limited move set meaning you're doing roughly the same thing most of the way though. Perhaps realising this, Ubisoft have done their best to include a smattering of variety to try and spice things up. While things like a bubble bed that enables you to jump and levels where you wear an inflatable ring and try not to get pricked by cacti do help it doesn't stop the main game feeling a bit old hat by the later stages.

Variety quibbles aside and entertaining as RGH can be at times there's a feeling that, much like the (limited) good bits in Raving Rabbids 2, what works here does so in spite of, rather than because of, the really rather annoying Rabbids themselves. As ever they're positively bending over backwards in their eagerness to be thought of as endearingly anarchic while instead remaining more like a gaggle of hyperactive five year olds dressed in ill advised Easter costumes. However, the innocent silliness of it all coupled with the fact that this is such a better game than previous Rabbids titles means you can't help but smile (albeit grudgingly) at times.

This being a Wii game we do of course have a DS version as well. Rather than try to cram the same game onto the duel screen handheld Ubisoft have instead re-tooled the game as a puzzler. Each level still involves collecting as much pile building stuff as possible but here you don't control the Rabbids and their trolley directly. Instead each level starts paused while you try to finish building it using the limited objects in your inventory so that, when activated, the Rabbids automated journey through the level is as fruitful as possible. Once un-paused the Rabbids try to move left to right, obeying gravity and any other stimuli as they go, so it's up to you to position platforms, jumps, barriers et al in such a way that they not only get from start to finish safely but they do so in a way that ensures they collect as many of each levels items as possible.

It's a nice enough idea in theory and owes more than a little to games like Lemmings, but it never really delivers on it's promise instead feeling quite a lot like a hobbled together shovelware release. Part of the problem is the limited tools you're given to solve each level, in this post Scribblenauts world we've come to expect something with a tad more depth, and before long repetition well and truly kicks in. Much like the Wii game, early puzzles suffer from being mind numbingly simple making getting to the better levels a real chore, however unlike the Wii game there's never enough of a reward to make it worth the effort.

Despite their continued lack of charm the Wii version of Rabbids Go Home is by far the fluffy maniac's best game. By focusing on more traditional gaming, rather than being yet another wagglefest, Rabbids Go Home serves as a subtle reminder that Michel Ancel and his team have far more to offer than has been on display of late. It may not trouble many end of year top ten lists and could have certainly done with the first hour or so being condensed into a quarter of the time, but it does what it says on the tin solidly enough making it by far the most enjoyable Rabbids game yet.

74%

By Paul Newcombe