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By Keith B (22nd Mar 2007)

If we're to believe the average pundit these days, then the gaming community is going to hell in a handbasket. Nothing quite gets our reptilian blood boiling, we are told, like bodies drawn and quartered, torsos impaled on impossibly long javelins, corpses shredded into a putrid mess, spines snapped like dehydrated twigs by thunderous blows, and faces pummeled to a liquid mess of strawberry jelly. But let's not forget eyeballs jabbed with skewers, poked with thumbs, or scooped from their sockets like melon balls from a fresh cantaloupe. And then there's the pleasure of knee caps bludgeoned like little league t-ball stands, joints twisted, contorted and hyper-extended, and noses inverted with the straight-armed jab of an open palm. In our world, machetes seemingly gravitate to skulls while elephant gun-sized blasts can't help but sever limbs and guillotine necks. We like punching unsuspecting senior citizens, walking the visually impaired out into open streets, and running over fawning mothers and the freshly born fruit of their wombs with pimped-out stolen cars. But, then again, nothing beats sniping disfigured monsters from 200 feet or pistol-whipping an injured soldier until his face crumples in on itself. Few things seemingly say "video game" like a pulpy mess of digitally animated, semi-human remains.

And-oh yeah-we also like bunny rabbits-so long as they're violent. Like sweet-toothed children, we'll take any unspeakably poisonous medicine so long as it comes with a spoonful of ultra-violent sugar. Enter Rayman Raving Rabbids.

As per usual to the series, Rayman Raving Rabbids follows its namesake hero (yellow nose, sans arms) through a group of roughly 70 mini-games, each of which features the title's quizzical rabbits (rabbids) in tandem with either the nunchuk or the Wiimote. The story is largely imaginative if seemingly obscure: the rabbids have enslaved Rayman and his friends, offering up numerous challenges intended to belittle Rayman and entertain his long-eared captors (it usually works the other way around, though). Each level consists of five unique challenges and numerous unlockable secret games. The rabbids themselves might warrant a game all their own. At the very least, they warrant the game's purchase-something its creators know all too well. Part bunny, part demented rodent-freak, the average rabbid is likely to lose its cool at any moment, lashing out and bouncing around in erratic, albeit gut-bustingly funny, ways. Throughout the game, in fact, players are treated to some highly dubious factoids about what we thought were our furry friends. Some gamers may be surprised to find out that rabbids don't milk cows, vacuum, or close bathroom doors-even for a number two.

Though Ubisoft and company have substantially revised the series, offering a vast departure in gameplay if not spirit, the game itself will likely leave both devotees once again kneeling at the gates of Raymania and newbies curiously enthralled. The game possesses the series' great if slightly twisted sense of humour. A successful Rayman, for instance, leaves the game's initial gladiator-like challenge with not a sword but a plunger. This comes in magnificently handy later on during (among other mini-games) maybe the Wii's finest First-Person Shooter module thus far: bunnies leveled by plungers.

As developers scramble-and often times struggle-to make good on the Wii's largely theoretical promise to revolutionize gaming, few have been able to turn the Wiimote's simple if limited technology into worthwhile long-play experiences. Ubisoft and the ever-ingenious Michel Ancel have instead thrown the epic game out, and brought in the stopwatch. Again and again, players are offered numerous different mini-games at wisely timed intervals. Before you know it, you're slapping choir boys; pulling worms from bucked teeth; engaging in rabbid-style whack-a-mole; hurling cows like discus; disco dancing; and much more. Barely is one game finished before you're onto the next, keeping play fresher to gamers than a field of carrots to you-know-who.

Graphically the game is at the higher end of the Wii's capabilities, if its bubbly, rounded animation is last-gen reminiscent. Some will undoubtedly long for the crisp hyper-realism of other, more graphically minded consoles, though the game itself proves that much can still be done visually on the Wii if only when placed in the right hands.

Few substantially bad things can really be said against Raving Rabbids, though maybe a warning or two is in order. The sound levels, for example, are often needlessly disproportionate. Sound effects, such as squealing pigs and tittering rabbids (while admittedly rather funny, maybe even hilarious), tend to drown the soundtrack out. While for most games this would be somewhat advantageous, Raving Rabbids happens to feature some pretty solid music, especially an undoubtedly killer version of "La Bamba" not to be missed for any rodent, no matter how funny or demented. As well, the mini-game format, while likely to keep playtime lively and action-packed, at times shows signs of rather uneven treatment, and at worst hasty production. That's not to say the game as a whole really leaves anything to be yearned for. The majority of the mini-games are wild if not downright uproariously fun; a few leave already satisfied players looking for that last stroke of video-game magic that turns great games into memorable ones; while some are frustratingly ill-conceived, if not unplayable. One example will suffice. Those familiar with the Wiimote know it can be a stubbornly fickle creature: much like a piglet, it runs the gamut from horrendously sensitive to ploddingly clumsy. Now imagine trying to usher that same fickle piglet through a minefield-an actual game in Raving Rabbids-and you start to get a sense of the frustrations that only a Bosnian farmhand will ever know. At times Rayman's buck-toothed friends likewise suffer from a certain repetitiveness. Often I got the sneaking suspicion that I was being served old meat in new gravy: under a layer of well-simmered graphics and amusing rabbid antics was an often all-too-familiar dumpling of FPS-though not enough can be said for that marvelous plunger-cum-javelin. Likewise, multiplayer action might leave some players at your game party feeling left out-competition is often consecutive, rather than head to head-though the vast majority will easily forget the killjoys as they are sucked into the rabbids' demented world.

How strange it is, then, and in the midst of a battlefield-like mess of human remains, that the latest game from Ubisoft Montpellier is neither violent nor boring. It's just good, clean, wholesome fun (at least when it comes to violence, though poop jokes are as prevalent as farts in the wind); no corpses are produced en masse, no limbs are wrongfully taken from their rightful owners. More to the point, there's no monkey see-monkey do flirtation that is so often leveled at the super violence of recent games. Even an incredulous Bill O'Reilly would be hard pressed to believe an infant could throw a cow several hundred yards. Simply put, Raving Rabbids is a great game and well worth the purchase. But be it known: those rabbids are dangerous, so watch out.