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Review: Rayman 3 HD

Have you heard the saying, “if it aint broke don’t fix it?” Well, surely that logically extrapolates to, “if it is broken, DO fix it.”

If you mention Rayman to most members of the gaming community, the majority response would be something along the lines of, “oh yeah, I loved that game growing up!” Therefore, Ubisoft’s HD arcade release of Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, is quite a clever way to keep the series relevant in the gaming arena.

Ubisoft have weaved some graphical magic whilst leaving the original game content in tact to provide a visually enhanced version of the 2003 classic.

Whilst not playing with the content for a nostalgic touch, unfortunately this means that the frustrating camera and control issues from the original game also are part and parcel with this release. There were a few parts of the game where the camera controls made it almost impossible continue playing. The camera would sporadically jump all over the place, often ending up with you aiming your attack into a nearby wall, with your back turned away from whatever enemy you were hoping to blast.

Achieving the 100% score in each level is quite hard — if not impossible — without help from a walkthrough; it’s probably not even worth the extra effort. It was disheartening to finish a level that you thought you’d done pretty well on only to realize you received below 50% of the “perfect” score.

The other problems I had came from the audio controls in the game. The default settings have soft dialogue against excessively loud background music. It’s annoying, but fixable via the audio settings. The problem with that is that I soon found that these settings would not be appropriate for subsequent levels — I had to go back into the settings with each new level to fiddle with volumes to hear things properly. It’s a real pity, because when you can hear the dialogue, it is actually quite funny.

The HD touches do boost the visual appeal of the game, especially bringing the original game into a day and age where technological capabilities are so different. Colours are more vibrant, the scenery is more luscious and the cut-scenes run a lot smoother, though having these features in 2012 should just be standard.

What this experience has done has made me want a new 3D Rayman game to be developed and I wonder if maybe (hopefully) Ubisoft will announce that a new game is planned for a follow up release in this format rather than the side-scrolling one of the recent Rayman: Origins.

Is the game worth playing? I don’t know if I’d say it is. If you enjoyed playing the game back in the day, then you might get a kick out of returning to it; just don’t expect it to blow you away. When playing you kind of get the feeling that very little effort has gone into fixing issues that were encountered at the time of the original game.

Camera and control issues aside, the game is still fun to play. While it’s maybe not as fun as the first time we all tackled it, Rayman 3  still holds its own when compared to current quality games. As with all arcade games it is not very expensive, which I think will be Rayman 3 HD’s saving grace. Fans should absolutely pick it up, as well as lovers of platformers. Everyone else should tread cautiously.


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About the author

Matthew Bird

Refer to opening scene of Bring it On.