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 Another story from NoE. Today they playtested Rayman: Raving Rabbids and Red Steel at GC 2006. Here's what they thought of these two games from Ubisoft:
Red Steel
Like its hero, who journeys from America to Japan to rescue his kidnapped bride-to-be, Red Steel has come a long way since its E3 debut. That first demo was put together in just a month, Ubisoft tells us, and since then they've been busy making a complete overhaul of the graphics and tweaking the controls, based on player feedback from E3. The team brought a new demo to Games Convention, which we got to try out.
It begins indoors, where we spend a few minutes happily testing out the fully destructible scenery; shooting stuff just to see what happens. Soon we're in our first sword fight and we learn that swinging the Wii Remote wildly will get you nowhere. Like in real katana combat, you'll need to learn specific moves from a sensei and make those motions with the Wii Remote. As your skills improve, your range of possible moves also increases. (There will also be another master to teach you new gun skills.)
Out in the street, the game’s new graphical style is more apparent, with characters and buildings having a stylised, glossy, neon-lit approach. Soon, though, they’re full of bullet holes as we let rip with our machine gun, pressing the A button to zoom in on enemies that are proving tricky to target. To reload, we simply give the Nunchuk in our left hand a quick flick, as if *****ing a real gun. Very Dirty Harry…
After laying waste to a pachinko parlour, we reach the gangster's den and try out the Focus System that lets you slow down time and target enemies to make non-lethal takedowns. (A white bar represents your remaining Focus power, which can be increased through training.) Showing mercy is going to play a big part in the game, as it'll help your American character gain respect with his Japanese peers.
At the end of the demo comes another, trickier, sword fight. After the opponent is defeated and on his knees, his fate lies literally in your hands as you can either swing the Wii Remote to finish him off or spare his life by moving the Nunchuk. Also, despite Red Steel's focus on guns and swords, the game will be free from blood and gore.
While it wasn't in the demo, Red Steel will also feature a split-screen multiplayer mode for up to four players - though Ubisoft was remaining tight-lipped about specifics at the moment.
We'll have more on Red Steel soon, in our upcoming VIP interview with Stephanie Langlois, Senior Project Coordinator at Ubisoft Paris.
Rayman Raving Rabbids
As Monty Python used to say: "And now for something completely different!"
Rayman Raving Rabbids is a crazy collection of party games that will get you running, jumping, swinging and dancing with your Wii Remote.
We got hands-on with the first playable version of the game, and what a first impression it was! First, it looks great; with big, detailed, colourful characters, but it's the gameplay that really shines.
Following an invasion of crazed rabbits, it's up to Rayman to stop them through more than 70 twisted minigames, divided into four categories: First-person shooters, Trials (a mixture of styles), Races and Dances. As Rayman, you'll need to clear a series of specific challenges in Story Mode. Once you've unlocked a game, you can play it anytime in Replay Mode.
Each game has a humorous title, such as 'Bunnies Can't Jump', in which you have to jump over a skipping rope by flicking the Nunchuk controller (jumping for real also works, too), or 'Bunnies Don't Use Toothpaste', a dentist game in which you must pluck worms from a rabbit's rotten teeth with the Wii Remote.
Every game requires you to do something wild and different with the Wii controls: rotating the Remote in a bizarre form of hammer tossing involving spinning a cow by its tail, pointing it Red Steel style to fire sink plungers at an army of rabbits invading an island, or swinging the Remote and Nunchuk in time to the Pulp Fiction music to make Rayman boogie on the dance floor. It's bonkers, brilliant stuff.
While the single-player Raving Rabbids is great fun to watch, it's even better to play as a group. Many games feature multiplayer for two or up to four players; and each player can design their own Rayman character from a choice of different outfits including Disco, Elvis, Gangsta and Gothic. The bunnies, too, come in lots of different guises, including one that looked uncannily like Ubisoft's Splinter Cell hero, Sam Fisher!
Ubisoft are still hard at work cramming even more minigames in, as the Wii launch deadline looms, but Rayman Raving Rabbids is shaping up very nicely indeed.
You can find out more behind-the-scenes info about Rayman Raving Rabbits by checking out our interview with Loïc Gounon from Ubisoft's Montpellier studio, coming to the VIP Lounge soon!
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