Rayman Raving Rabbids on the Nintendo Wii is a fantastic game, funny, enjoyable to play and making excellent use of the Wiimote. This isn’t about the Wii though, this is about the recent Xbox 360 port of the game.
After playing Rabbids on a friend’s Wii I had great expectations of having the same laugh out loud play experience on my own 360. My excitement quickly turned to boredom after watching the loading screens repeat for the thousandth time. The game itself is the same collection of fun mini-games with a twisted, violent sense of humour that contrasts in hilarious ways with the absurdly cute Rabbids. I could even forgive that the translation of the motion sensing controls to the standard console controller left something to be desired. Seriously, throwing a cow is way more fun when you are whipping it around over your head and not just twirling a stick with your thumb.
At the end of the day though you spend more time watching loading screens than actually playing the mini-games. The port to the 360 also seemed rushed. The standard Xbox acheivement gained notice does not activate and you don’t know you gained an acheivement until you quit the game. I also managed to crash one of the games last night, leaving the interface and audio functioning but the actual 3D graphics had turned into nothing but a dull gray screen.
Unless you really really need to release some pent up frustration on some cute little bunnies, I’d suggest leaving this one on the shelf, or try and get your hands on a Wii to play it instead.
