Wii: Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party

We have been playing Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, from Ubisoft, recently for the Nintendo Wii.

It caught our attention as it was advertising more than 50 mini games which could be ideal for keeping the kids occupied with their short attention spans. We were only hoping that the control mechanisms are quite straightforward – sometimes they can be a little too complicated for the little ones especially when the Nunchuk is required (which it is for this game).

The blurb tells us “Party with four person multiplayer or an all new eight player arcade mode! More than 50 hilarious games that will have you racing, wrestling, surfing and dancing to hits! Hook up a Wii balance board to play the first videogame you can control with your butt!”.

The game has a playful vibe somewhere between Guinness World Records and Wii Sports Island but is set around television channels, where mini games are split across channel hopping activities throughout the in-game day. Both solo play and multiplayer campaigns are catered for, and as you progress through the campaigns you will unlock new games. A Free Play option allows you to simply choose from all the games you have unlocked so far.

From time to time during a game an “ad break” indicator will appear allowing the current player to pause current programming (the game) and play a micro-game for a few seconds – winning gets the player a special bonus.

The games are a mixed bag and they do have a slight feel of disjointedness in both style and sometimes in the way they are presented – almost as if each game was developed by a different team then stitched together later. That said, most of them are fun to play often requiring little more than a flick of the wrist at the right moment. Many of the games can be played using the motion board in place of the Wiimote which adds an interesting angle to game play – but the kids prefer the Wiimote.

The cutesy rabbids are what really make the game unique and appealing for the kids (Rayman himself barely makes an appearance so far) and they are usually good at knowing what they like and don’t like. They found some of the games a bit boring (so did we) as little control is required past shaking the remote however they do enjoy a number of the other games including the bounce game.

All in all it’s a good game made even moreso by the recent drop in price – we picked it up for £15 in Tesco Extra. Once we’ve played it a good few times more we’ll post an update as to how we’re getting on with it.

An oddity in the accompanying game manual is on page 12 where the same paragraph is repeated, it appears first under the heading “Sabotage!” then the identical paragraph appears again under “And Now For Something Completely Different…”