Wednesday 18 Nov 2009

Rabbids Go Home is a fun and wacky adventure game that will keep you entertained for a good few hours. Ubisoft’s popular Rayman Raving Rabbids series was built around Rayman and the Rabbids participating in crazy short mini-games but this installment departs from the norm, being the Rabbids first standalone escapade without Rayman. It is filled to the brim with crazy antics and more of the humour that we have come to expect from the psycho bunnies.

The Rabbids plan is quite simple, well relatively anyway, pile as much stuff as possible to get back home to the moon. Where do they get this stuff from? Why from the humans of course, who have made collecting stuff both a refined art and a compulsory habit over the centuries.

“You’ve your whole life to pay, use your store card today”

At face value it’s another crazy Rabbids game, mindless fun really and a great way to spend a couple of hours. However, you can’t help but to think that there is a slightly deeper meaning to the game, an almost satirical look at how we humans do collect stuff and are even willing to go to great lengths to protect it. The hilarious commentary that emerges from the loudspeakers in the shopping malls goes a long way to adding to this spoof. For example, “Work more to earn more so you can spend more” or “check out our discounts on everything you’ll never need.”

You control the direction that your trolley is speeding off in with the analogue stick on the Nunchuk, while pressing A on the Wii Remote will activate the boost. Shake the Wii Remote to blast through obstacles or knock the senses out of that annoying but rather cute looking beagle. Of course should you happen to shake it by a human, you will launch a Bwaaaah attack, stripping the human down to his or her undergarments and leaving them dashing for cover, whether that be to the top of a vending machine or scrambling up to the safety of a street sign. And there’s also almost always a stream of good tunes that will get you in the collecting stuff mood.

Collecting stuff is easy, just ride over it with the trolley and it will be added to your ever-growing pile. It’s quite a sight to see the trolley careening through a shopping mall or hospital, piled high with paint cans, toilet rolls, dogs and whatever else you dare to collect along the way. When you see a brass-playing Rabbid you can unload the stuff for safe-keeping, just in case that mean looking pitbull nips you on the rear or you swerve to close to a cactus, and let’s not forget to mention the ominous looking Verminators whose goal it is to exterminate you. Once your three lives (designated by light bulbs in the bottom left corner of the screen) are used up, its tickets for you. However, you can collect light bulbs along the way to replenish your health and if you should die, apart from losing your stash of goods, you simply restart at the closet checkpoint which is never too far back.

Don’t forget to wear your sani-slippers

The mall is an oasis of stuff but you can also look forward to exploring a hospital and meeting the challenges of a neat-bot, who despises objects being out of place, and a sani-bot, who is most displeased at your lack of sani-slippers. It’s here that you will also face a few easy puzzles that you will need to solve in order to progress in the game, but fear not because there’s always a friendly Rabbid on hand to whisper a few hints in your ear. Sometimes when you pick up an object, the game will play a short, comical cut-scene showing the Rabbids enjoying their new acquisition, such as a radio controlled car or a fire hydrant.

Even though you will be collecting stuff throughout the game, you will be faced with different challenges along the way…involving collecting stuff. Not only will you move between different areas of the city (from the mall to the hospital to the airport etc.) which adds a bit of variety to the gameplay but each stage features different goals, ranging from collecting as much stuff as possible in ‘Shop till you drop’ to mapping out a collecting strategy with ‘In the nick of time’ when a time limit is imposed and you will find yourself navigating your way through obstacles blocking your path, such as conveyor belts and cacti, in an attempt to hinder how many toilet rolls you collect.

You can discover new areas along the way by throwing water jugs at barriers or speeding up walls Tony Hawk style. You will also soon be able to shoot open gates by using the cannonball Rabbid or wafting up on a blast of air from various vents to explore higher ground. You will also discover that your trolley has other skills as well, for instance it can fly between platforms and it can even skid around corners to earn you a much needed speed boost. Once you have completed an area, its back to the sewers with you to deliver your loot and add to the pile of stuff.

Shake it baby

Of course you can also customize your Rabbid, transforming the cute white bunny into whatever your mind can imagine thanks to the gifts you win along the way. The Rabbid is trapped inside the Wii Remote so you can shake him around by tilting the Wii Remote in every which direction, before kitting him out with new accessories, tattoos and tools. These are just as wacky as you would expect them to be, ranging from an octopus hat to placing a vice stretch on his head and stretching his cranial cavity up or down. If you are not happy with your new Rabbid simply place a bomb inside his mouth and he will blast back to normal…now why didn’t I think of that?

Ubisoft Montpellier has put together an imaginative and well-polished game that leaves me looking forward to the next adventures of the crazy Rabbids. Although the gameplay can become slightly repetitive given the nature of collecting stuff, the development team has gone all out to ensure that this repetitiveness is negated by the different game environments and missions. The funny antics of the bunnies also serve to shake things up a bit every now and again, in what often turns out to be very un-politically correct ways, such as nonchalantly stealing a jet engine off an airplane to speed their ride up. But it’s this very attitude that we have come to expect from the Rabbids and ultimately love too, from start to finish.

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Contributor:	Lisa

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