POSTED 4/12/12


RABBIDS LAND

Ubisoft
Wii U

All in all, a three-ring circus of unity with parody. Tragedy or comedy? Probably publicity...

Cheers John. Those wacky, crazy and other overused adjectives to describe them rabbids – aka les lapins cretins – aren’t letting the dawning of a new Wii escape their fuzztacular clutches, nuh-uh. And don’t the kids love them!

Actually, we do too – unabashedly. Our flat’s full of the little fuckers. When they first blooped forth from Rayman’s shadow we were entranced. They made minigamin’ fun – often. But the ride got bumpier as the sheer lunacy that made them so endearing was diluted. Sadly, that trend continues here.

Rabbids Land’s basically a bored – sorry, predictable-but-true attempt at humour - board game. Up to four players select a coloured rabbid and chuck that dice. You amble, swim, jump and scramble around three rings of typical boardy gamistic squares, scoring bonuses, getting dudded, answering trivia way too straightly and being catapulted – literally - into minigames. Well, when we say literally, we mean onscreen. You’re not flung from your couch or anything. Duh!

As for those minigames, there are only 19. They all go GamePad, from motion control to fingering to, erm, blowing penguins. They’re OK, but lack that much-loved manically insane mad bastard spark. We even had a Wii break to ensure our glasses hadn’t become all rosy-coloured. They hadn’t.

Basically, the main attraction’s boring. Four can play, but only ever two at a time. Playing solo’s an exercise in thumb-twiddling, as you can’t skip the U-controlled players’ antics. Then there are the pop-popping audio glitches that have you wanting to get righteously rabid upon your right speaker...

A solo mode lets singletons play stuff unlocked in the main ‘attraction’, scoring coins which unleash vids. These are sublime. If the rest of the game absorbed their vibe then this’d be a les cretinous Disneyland, rather than Piss Weak World.

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