The first Rayman Raving Rabbids was a Wii launch title and, while it was very creative, suffered from Ubisoft’s lacking full grasp of a new control system. Now, barely a year later, they’ve released a sequel that fixes some issues, but creates new ones.
Some of the new minigames are extremely inventive. The ‘cellphone in a movie theater’ game is simple, but hilarious. Gameplay is second to humor throughout this title, and it’s very welcome. If anything they consistently got right, it’s the comedy aspect.
Focus for this new title is on multiplayer and it’s a winner. Playing this at a party of six people, four people were almost always able to play together. The two left out were still entertained by the craziness of the characters in the game as well as the Wiimote swinging antics of the players.
Speaking of controls for Rabbids 2, the greatest flaw was its reliance on ‘shake it as fast as you can’ for many of the games. Considering the creativity of almost every aspect of the title, it’s a shame they seemed to default to flailing when no other controls seemed appropriate.
Another big improvement for this release are the rail shooter levels. Instead of drawn backgrounds, they are using full motion videos shot (apparently) around New York and Paris. They insert an onslaught of Rabbids overtaking a city and the effect is quite convincing. The only mistake they made this time was not including the grappling hook from the first game.
Having as much fun with the original as I did, I had very high expectations for this sequel. A few let downs may have kept it from getting higher marks, but it is one of the greatest party games for Wii out there right now. If you could combine a few of the minigames from the first Rabbids title with the interface and multiplayer setup of its sequel, it would nearly be perfect.
