Rayman games traditionally were platformer games designed to be competition for the popular Mario franchise. The Rayman franchise has departed from this style of gameplay on its most recent alliteration Raving Rabbids compiling mini-games designed to have a fun, whacky experience. From the ground up, Raving Rabbids was a game designed to fully explore the possibilities of the Wii's unique controls and provide an experience only that system could insure. How does this game fare on the Xbox 360 now that it loses some of its main appeal? The answer is quite well.

Rayman Raving Rabbids opens up with our main character, Rayman and a handful of his friends enjoying a nice spring day when unexpectedly he and his friends are taken prisoner by demented little bunnies called Rabbids. The Rabbids force Rayman to go through various trials and challenges, which is the main focus of the game. But before we get into gameplay, the Rabbids need to be explained as to what exactly they are. Ubisoft has put a lot of time into creating something new and memorable, and it clearly shows. The Rabbids, on the outside, are cute furry Bunny-like creatures that seem innocent in every sense of the word. This is not the case. The Rabbids have a nack for mischief and violence, usually a combination of the two. From whacking each other on the head, to just a general loud scream, you can never tell what a Rabbid is going to do. Rabbids also seem to come in different types of personalities as well. A majority of them are normal, but there are a lot of unique Rabbids, ranging from one in a French maid outfit to even one of Ubisoft's icon characters Sam Fisher. The Rabbids just seem to come in all shapes and sizes, and as such, are completely unpredictable. That a good thing though, as if they were predictable, how would that make the mini-games fun?

The main story of the game is Rayman is imprisoned by the Rabbids and is forced to complete the various trials the Rabbids put forth. Every day Rayman is asked to accomplish up to four small challenges, only three of which are required. Once you complete three challenges, the "boss" challenge opens up, which is usually a first person shooter on rails where you shoot plungers at Rabbids. Once you finish this, your day is over and Rayman is given a plunger and is taken back to his prison cell. Why our hero is given a plunger is not explained ?one could guess it is part of the unpredictable nature of the Rabbids ?but Rayman finds a good use for them. After a few days Rayman begins to make a ladder out of the plungers in hopes of reaching an open window in his prison cell.

The various mini-games in Raving Rabbids are quiet varied in what they force you to do. One mini-game gets you to swing around a giant cow on chain, similar to something like Disk throw in order to see how far you can throw it, while another game has you slapping shut bathroom stall doors to make sure the Rabbids keeps their business private. The mini-games are historical and fun to look at the first few times through them. Shooting a large bovine into a basketball net or playing jump rope does lose its appeal, but thankfully not very quickly.

The difficulty in Raving Rabbids is pretty non-existent. Most players should find themselves completing any mini-game on their first or second try. Very few of these have a high level of difficulty that would require multiple tries. Some players might find the odd mini-game every so often that is extremely difficult, but once it is passed ?or skipped ?your back into the rut of completing easy mini-games resumes. Granted, the difficulty scales up as you proceed through the game, where your tasks get naturally harder, or you see returns of old mini-games with harder gameplay or goals, but it is still not enough to stop a competitive gamer or a dedicated young child.

A problem of the game lies in the load times. Raving Rabbids seems to take too long to load at times, with anywhere from five to fifteen seconds required. Considering some mini-games take literally seconds to play, you could end up finishing a game in less time then it takes to load. If the larger games were to take the longer load times, this would be understandable, but when you have to sit through a considerable load session every time you go in and out of a mini-game, it stacks up over time.

The controls in Raving Rabbids are pretty uneven in terms of fluency. Some controls feel really well when you input them, while others feel as though a monkey slapped them together. One saving grace, that also adds a very large fun factor to the game, is the ability to use the Xbox Live Vision Camera to play some of the mini-games. A large portion of the mini-games work really well when playing with the camera, such as the shooter on rails boss trials and the dancing mini-games. It is very entertaining when your flinging your arms around on screen to play the specific games. The camera is no where near as precise as the controller though, so if youe going purely for score the camera support should remain off. On top of that, a few of the mini-games work horribly with the camera. The games that work poorly are almost unplayable with the camera. Using the trial and error approach to find out which games works well and doesn is just an annoying approach sometimes, but once the ones that work well are found it is a really enjoyable experience that you will probably play a few times.

The multiplayer aspect, which was a huge plus on the Wii version of Raving Rabbids, seems to have done a complete 180 and became a negative towards this version of the game. The entire multiplayer feels slapped on, that absolutely no thought was put into it. Depending on which mini-game you choose, the game will play completely different. After everyone has taken their turn during specific mini-games, the player with the highest score wins. Other mini-games have a direct head to head challenge, where all the participants play at the same time and try to beat the competition in a single challenge. The problem with this is its entirely uninformative at times which ones do which. A good example is one of the games has players trying to shear as much as possible off a sheep with other players attempt this at the same time, while the racing mini-games has only singular player time trials where the player with the best time wins. The inconsistencies in the multiplayer aspect of the game bring it down completely. You could be going into a mini-game with very high hopes and be solely disappointed due to poorly put together job in including multiplayer support to a few of the good mini-games.

Rayman Raving Rabbids is, at its core, a very fun single player mini-game experience. The Rabbids are fun, enjoyable, and overall will be remembered long after the game has been permanently put to rest. The game gives players more than enough entertainment, original ways to cause havoc and induce shenanigans, and as such, is a game a lot will easily find enjoyment in. The multiplayer support is horrid enough to cause players to put down their controllers with a bad taste in their mouth. The sole reason you get into Raving Rabbids is to play its satisfying gameplay, and that what you will get walking out. If youe looking for something to beat in a weekend, or something that you will probably take away fond memories of all the shenanigans and the tomfoolery that happens in the game, this is the game to pick up.