Rayman has come a long way since his initial excursions all those years ago on the Atari. Making a name for himself on the PS2, the little wonder has recently taken to party games based around his ongoing struggle against screaming hoardes of angry rabbids (basically rabbits who look like they’ve been thrown about the bedroom by Kerry Katona – scared, angry, confused, vengeful). Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party is the latest Rayman incarnation for the Wii, and looks destined to take up residence in many a front room as the winter nights draw in.
The Raving Rabbids series has been making sure stars of the aforementioned angry rabbids, thanks to games full of fun characterisations and witty asides combined with a wide selection of mini-games that include enough of the trademark Rayman weirdness to keep everybody happy.
Over at Ubisoft, there are high hopes for Raving Rabbids TV Party, and especially for the rabbits themselves, with their quirky futuristic technology and strangely charismatic personalities.
“I honestly think they can get huge,” says Ubisoft marketing director Jon Rosenblatt. “Just look at their YouTube success, it’s massive. They’re certainly crazy enough to be on TV. Mario and Pokemon are on TV. I know some of the Japanese licences were cartoons before games, but I genuinely believe that the rabbids have a perfect crossover appeal for boys, girls and young adults. I’d like to see them on something like Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network in a year or two.”
Future multi-media superstardom aside, it’s easy to see why the titles in the series so far have been a roaring success. As we all know, the Wii is perfectly suited to quirky party games, and for all those gamers that splashed out on the Wii Fit board and are longing to put it to new uses, any opportunity to crack the clever peripheral out in a non-fitness related fashion is sure to be greeted with open arms.
With a central premise that the rabbids have taken over all TV broadcasting for a week (which should actually prove more entertaining than most of the meaningless pigs’ toss that seems to find its way onto the tube nowadays), there are a different suite of games for each day of the week, with plenty of variety and suitably cutting observations on the state of all things televisual thrown in. With up to eight players in one multiplayer game, there’s obvious potential for the unveiling of long hidden competitive streaks and lots of embarrassing board-based falling over.
A huge marketing campaign coming up to Christmas is soon to spring into action, focusing on the rabbids, who will be spoofing current shows, such as X Factor, in the breaks between the actual programmes. “They’re going to have a TV appearance this Christmas,” added Ubisoft group brand manager Mark Slaughter. “We’re spending in excess of £1 million on a campaign that will takeover ad breaks on primetime shows.
“We’ll aim to interrupt the viewer with three spots within the same break with two 10-second ads, followed by a 30-second finale. If you compare like-for-like with Rayman 2, we’re spending three times what we spent last year, as well as ensuring primetime spots on ITV1’s Saturday night.”
Nailing those all-important family viewing ad spaces is undoubtedly going to lead to the inclusion of Raving Rabbids TV Party in many a Christmas list, whilst the use of the board is certainly going to raise the hackles of all those Wii Fit owners who angrily tucked their shiny new Wii accessory under the bed once it had told them they were clinically obese. Additionally, a wide selling and popular character, known to be family friendly yet great to play with, a large established fanbase like Rayman makes this one a sure-fire seller.
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