Obviously, the game is a sequel to Rayman’s original escapades with the Raving Rabbids. We weren't given any insight into the actual storyline, but we are sure of two things. One: that the storyline is bound to be a crazy look into how the rabbids are trying to take over the world. And two: that the plot is also sure to be a convenient excuse to take you through all types of zany mini games. Talking of which, we tried out four of the games featured in Raving Rabbids 2.
The first game we tried our hand at was baseball, to which there are two parts. Firstly, the pitcher starts at first base, and runs around past second and onto third. You control his running by rapidly and alternately shaking the Wiimote and nunchuk; the faster you shake, the faster your pitcher. When he reaches third base, he launches himself at the batter. You then take control of the batsman, and use the Wiimote to belt the pitcher/ball as far as you can. This concept worked worked quite well, and rewarded timing.
Wha?!?!?
The second minigame, "Burger", was played out a slightly different pace. Here, the player has to hold the Wiimote out in front of them horizontally. A bunny comes out of a door balancing a burger on a plate. The goal is to tilt the Wiimote appropriately, and by doing so the bunny will stumble in that direction. Once you've stumbled enough times in the right direction (towards another, very hungry bunny), you get points which are based on how much food you've successfully delivered. Stumble around too much, and you'll drop the meal and get no points at all. As you progress, the food stacks get higher and higher, and the game itself showed an opening for some sabotage tactics.
The third minigame, "Rodeo", places a bunny on a rodeo machine. You'll need to follow the Wiimote motions that are prompted on screen to ensure your bunny stays on the machine. The controls here required precise and rhythmic timing, so once you miss one move, you'll struggle to get back into the groove.
Finally, "Spittoon" is about as sickly as it sounds. In this minigame, your bunny is at the top of the screen. You'll need to drink a bottle of carrot juice by shaking the Wiimote up and down as quickly as possible. As soon as you've consumed all the carrot juice your bunny leans over a railing and, yes, you need to tilt the Wii remote to drop your spit into the glass of an unsuspecting bunny below. Yeah, it grossed us out a little as well.
That's a lot of bunnies.
We believe that one of the reasons that the original Raving Rabbids was successful was due to the fact that a truly talented developer in Michael Ancel was leading the project. While a couple of the games above may have left us scratching our heads (each for different reasons), all four of the minigames felt like they had some thought behind them. Raving Rabbids 2 doesn't fundamentally change the formula of the previous game, but does build nicely upon this, and adds even more crazy, zany minigames. Raving Rabbids 2 is a great demonstration of how to correctly utilise the Wii remote, and is a clear step up from its predecessor.
In terms of looks, the game is definitely shaping up to be one of the better-looking Wii titles - it's exceedingly colourful and well-detailed. On top of this, the zany bunny sounds make for one heck of an experience. There will be a number of new bunnies to play as, including Spiderman, Sam Fisher and Naruto. There's no denying the game is a Wii title, but it still looks rather impressive.
Some people might be unhappy with the fact that the next Rayman experience is still a minigame compilation. But as far as minigame compilations go, Raving Rabbids 2 is shaping up to be quite a good one. As long as the Wiimote motion controls are sharpened up before the final release, and the minigames are as fun as the ones we experienced, we're sure more of Raving Rabbids can only be a good thing.
I got the feeling that the first game was a bit of a tech demo for the Wii, which didn't help.
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