The Bottom Line: A disappointing addition to the Rayman legacy. With shoddy multiplayer support, mundane computer opponents, and average graphics and sound, Rayman Arena proves console to PC games sometimes just don't work.
UbiSoft's disconnected hero is back! And in his newest PC incarnation, Rayman Arena, he's more disconnected than one might have hoped. This is not the first game to claim multiplayer capability and then fail to deliver, but the fact that so many other facets of gameplay felt sorely unpolished is what's truly disappointing.
The Game
Rayman Arena hearkens from the last PC addition to the Rayman line, Rayman 2: The Great Escape, bringing together familiar characters and surroundings for new challenges and surprises! Arena revolves around completing furious footraces and blistering battles between characters, which in turn reveal new levels, challenges and modes of play. The game can be played in either single player mode or multiplayer mode.
The first thing one encounters on running the game is a rather aggravating CD check. One is accustomed to a CD of some type being required to load most games, but Rayman Arena doesn't require only one CD. The game is loaded up via the first CD, then it will demand the second CD to continue. This would be understandable to some degree if information was required from the second CD, but I did a full installation and therefore this was not the case.
Once the game is up and running, the player is then greeted with a dizzying interface system. Various menus are spread throughout a 3D space full of floating objects and spinning "worm holes" that one travels through from menu to menu. Sound somewhat extravagant? It is. Luckily, there is an option to turn the actual traveling off, allowing one to zip from menu to menu in a much more reasonable fashion.
There are, of course, standard configuration options for the game, such as sound and music volume, controls for the players, etc.
Don't worry though. Nothing you configure in the game stays put. It'll all be back to default when you load up next. A rather daft problem, obviously stemming from the game's console birth to PC mutation.
Where It All Falls Apart
Now is the time to choose a single player game, or a multiplayer game. This also involves choosing your character. There are eight in total, but only five to choose from when you start out. Completing enough courses and battles will open up the three extra characters. Don't worry who you choose though. There is no indication in the manual or gameplay that any characters have any advantage over the others.
Single player mode allows progressive movement through increasingly difficult races and battles. This is nothing new, of course, so this type of gameplay will seem quite familiar to many. You cannot affect your opponents directly in racing, but there are targets spread throughout the courses that allow you to alter the landscape in an attempt to flub up your opponents. The battles are unique in that you have different choices of weapons to use against your computer opponents, and a few different challenges, including collecting the most lums and knocking out your opponent the quickest.
In regards to A.I. for either the races or the battles, however, Rayman Arena falls quite noticeably short. In the races, your computer opponents will simply take a familiar path. If you hit a target that changes the terrain, this may in fact be a positive thing for the computer. If it cared. Generally your opponents will just come behind you and hit the same target again, then go along the same way they went last time around the track. This is not challenging in any way, as a few rounds around the track will show you exactly when and where you can muss up the computer and take a brisk lead. As for the battles, the computer will simply shoot at you if you're too close and doesn't seem to make any major differentiation between the various weapons.
Multiplayer mode allows one to play with one other player via splitscreen on the same computer, or with up to four players over a LAN. And here is where this game loses points dramatically. First thing to mention, players cannot both play via the keyboard. You must own some type of gamepad for the same-computer, split-screen variety of play. And within the control configuration, you cannot choose who uses what form of control. Player one is forced to use the keyboard and player two the gamepad.
Within multiplayer races, the choices of gameplay are somewhat interesting. There is the standard form of completion where one player must finish a set number of laps before another. And then there is also a "kill time" mode, which bumps one player out if they fall too far behind at each checkpoint. The number of seconds distance required can be set anywhere from 2 to 8.
Sadly, multiplayer mode does not follow any linear path of progression like single player mode does, or like any other game of this type that I've seen. There is no championship mode, no "best out of" mode. In fact, the only way you can play different courses in multiplayer mode is if you've already completed them in single player mode.
Looks Aren't Everything
The graphics in Rayman Arena are smooth and colourful. Some of the modeling is simplistic, but that doesn't necessarily work against the overall feel of the game.
One complaint though is the camera and it's influence in the game. The controls in Arean work thus. When you press up, your character runs away from you. When you press down, towards you. Then left and right respectively. This is fine in itself, but then you throw the camera into the mix. The camera will always stay behind you, but it also follows the path of the course. What this means is when you press up to move in a certain direction, the camera will shift to follow the course, and so will your character because they always move in the same direction as the camera does. This quickly becomes irritating in gameplay when precise control is required to stay on a certain route of the course.
Satisfactory Sound
The sound effects and music within Rayman Arena are quite good. They are fairly standard to the gameplay.
The sounds are appropriate, but the voices of the characters will begin to grate. They only have three or four different phrases (or noises) they make in relation to action within the game. Luckily, with different characters to choose from, you don't need to listen to the same one for too long before switching off.
The music is enjoyable. Each character has their own "theme" played for various levels, and the music also speeds up if your time is running out within timed courses. Overall, well implemented.
Boiling It All Down
Rayman Arena had me giddy with anticipation before it was released. However, the end product leaves much to be desired. Finishing a course or challenge doesn't leave you wanting to try again, the graphics are standard and the sound is merely good.
And of course, one can't let go the fact that this game, advertised as "multiplayer", doesn't deliver where it counts. The PC version was ported from consoles, but it seems a no-brainer to me that Arena for the PC ought to have included internet support. The whole game felt rushed and partially incomplete.
I still look forward to Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, but Rayman should probably avoid stepping into new genres, lest he slip up again. We'd hate to see him break a limb.
Total competition crash course with the cast of Rayman 2 Struggle through 12 courses in an all-out rush for the checkered flag Choose from 8 playable ...More at Amazon Marketplace
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