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Thursday 21 February, 2008
Gameplay:
For my second hour of gameplay I decided to keep playing through the main adventure mode in order to get more levels to play in multiplayer and more accessories for Rayman to dress up in. What I find interesting about this game is the diversity in both difficulties and games to play. By that I mean that in every set of mini-games, there is always one that is (or at least seems like it) significantly more difficult then the rest of them. I don't want to say that this is a negative aspect of the game, because on the other side of the spectrum, some of the games seem incredibly simple, so in a way it balances out. Unfortunately, it does get annoying at times because every once in a while you will run into a mini-game that seems impossibly difficult and, at the least, incredibly frustrating. luckily the game designers took this into account, I feel, because they made it possible to only beat 3 of the 4 games to move on. I've had to, on many occasions, use that to my advantage because of the difficulty of these mini-games.
difficult games aside, I still greatly enjoyed playing RRR again and enjoyed, even more, playing the multiplayer mode with my friends. The mini-games are great fun alone but some just beg you to invite some friends over and have at it. One great aspect of this game is that it has silly characters, such as the Rabbids, which make the game very entertaining just to watch. Some times, I'd prefer to watch! And as if the designers of this game had foresight, this is possible, even when playing multiplayer mode! Some games are standard multiplayer, as in two or more players compete against each other to get the highest score, but other games are designed so that each player will have to go one at a time. While some might think this to deter from the social aspect of the game, I found that it only enhances it by giving each player time to think about their strategy and gather information about what to do and what not to do from watching other players.
Design:
Like I said before, this game must have been a huge honor to make for the Wii right as it debuted. While there were other fun titles to play when the Wii first came out, Raving Rabbids seems to have outlive and win the battle of becoming an immediate classic game.
I (as well as the professor) would consider this a classic game because of its innovative controls, inter-activeness, and replay value. Obviously, any game made for the Wii will need to be made with innovative controls, because that is just the basis of the Wii. The thing that makes Raving Rabbids different is the fact that there are so many different styles of control all within one game. Take for example, the fact that you'll be wildly spinning the controller over your head in a discus-type event to make a cow fly as far as possible one minute, and then using the Wiimote to aim and the nunchuck to reload while shooting plungers at Rabbids the next minute. Everything from the use of the controls to the new spins on old style mini-games is fantastically innovative and incredibly fun. This kind of innovation instantly inspires others to come watch and/or join you in a round or two of gameplay. A game that intrigues many people instantly definitely deserves to be considered a classic in my book. And of course with all of the cow spinning, Rabbid shooting, hog racing action, who wouldn't want to play the game over and over again? This is one of those great party games that you can just put in and enjoy for hours on end.
I'd also like to comment on another part of the design of this game: SIMPLICITY. If I could use only one phrase to describe the layout of this game, it would definitely be, "Less Is More". It astounds me how simple this game looks. You have your basic "arena" set up: a bowl, four available doors and one locked door. That's it. The designers wasted no time in making complex layouts or fancy-shmancy graphics all over the place, they just focused on the mini-games and the other innovations in the game. This is genius on their part because it forces the player to focus all of their attention on the mini-games. No story, no nothing. This is very inspiring and helpful when I think about the design of our own game. "Less is more", is definitely something I will keep in mind for future designs.
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