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GamesRelay Score
Great
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Name: Rabbids Go Home
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The Rabbids series of games have become quite a popular franchise for Ubisoft, and rightly so. The previous games which were set in the Rayman universe were always a collection of small, yet fun, minigames, but Rabbids Go Home isn’t, it’s an adventure game. The plot is quite simple, the earth bound Rabbids feel that the Moon is their true home, and after causing all types of mayhem on our beloved planet Earth they finally want to go home. The Rabbids are simple creatures and as such the only way they could think of getting to the moon was to climb there, to do it they’ll have to collect as much clothing, bottles, trash, animals, and anything else they can get their paws onto and amass them all into a huge pile of junk which will eventually reach the moon.
You play as two Rabbids and a shopping trolley, one pushes, while the other one collects anything you come across to make room for it, the goal in each of the levels is to collect as much of this stuff as possible while avoiding any enemies and traps. Collecting these objects is easy enough, just rolling over them will have your Rabbid riding shotgun pick them up and try to fit everything in as your collection of junk sways with every corner you take. It isn’t always this simple however, some of the objects are guarded, others require you making your way across conveyor belts in the shopping mall for instance, and some are being worn by humans, yes, clothing, charging at a human and shaking the Wii Remote will have the Rabbids scream at the human, thus scaring them and making their clothes fall off (everything but there pants!). All the objects have a white illumination around them to make things clear but some will have to be charged at before they break apart into the items you can pick up.
While the levels are fun, early on they can be a little too simple, with its collecting nature gameplay and enemies which don’t seem to provide much, if any challenge, it’s only the sounds and random antics of the Rabbids which keep things entertaining. These levels can take a while to complete and unfortunately there is no mid-way save point in each level, you either finish it or lose it, but perseverance certainly pays off because further on in the game the enemies and the humans become more aggressive. They’ll attack you using hand-to-hand combat, throw bombs at you, or even set dogs on to your poor Rabbids, obviously they don’t want their clothes stolen by a bunch of maniac Rabbids, boring buggers! The levels themselves improve as well, since you have to collect so many items as possible - you’ll eventually come across various hidden areas containing more junk to boost your mound of rubbish, as you collect these items they can be dropped off at a number of different Rabbids along the way which like to carry a variety of brass instruments to make noise with, while there is no limit to the amount of items your trolley will carry, having too many and dying will see you lose them, so remembering to drop them off as much as possible certainly helps matters. Although, it is fairly difficult to get killed in Rabbids Go Home, while some of the levels are challenging and an angry mob of humans can seem daunting, after a bit of practice it becomes fairly easy to get by.
Players control the Rabbids with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, buttons aren’t really used throughout the game apart from the boost, it’s mainly the analogue stick on the Nunchuk and the shaking of the Wii Remote which performs the majority of actions. Throughout a variety of levels the game will shake things up a bit such as allowing you to jump by shaking the remote, others have you bouncing around in a desert as you try to avoid the spiky cacti. These varying levels break up the constant shop-till-you-drop type gameplay offering some variation, but it isn’t on the varying scale of some of the minigame compilations.
One of the features some people will really enjoy is the character creator; there are any number of combinations you can come up with as you can paint your Rabbids in any style you like, changing their features, sizes and mostly anything you can think of. To show off the flexibility of the creation process and what you can come up with, the game comes with the Rabbids Go Home channel which you can install on your Wii menu. This application allows you to see the months competition for the best Rabbids in any given category. You can look at the whacky creations others have come up with and vote on them to win, or, if you’re feeling particularly creative, submit your own and try to win, it’s certainly different, and a lot of fun. This is one of the things which will keep you going back to the main game because every level has various unlockables with which to customise your Rabbid further, hopefully helping your chances to win if you submit one.
Rabbids Go Home can be too easy at times but the positives more than make up for the negatives, the Rabbids themselves add some much needed entertainment to the package with their whacky nature and fun loving ethos, yet the start of the game and the lack of save points early on can be a little too enduring for some. While the game certainly isn’t aimed at the more mature audience, it can be a lot of fun for everyone, especially children.
