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RAYMAN RUSH (PS)
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Publisher: Ubi-Soft.
Developer: Ubi-Soft Shanghai. Released: March 2002. Genre: 3D Platformer/Racing. Posted 11th April 2020. By Tom Clare © 2020 |
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Limbless Gallic wonder Rayman surprised PlayStation owners in 2002 with a return to the platform that had seemed unlikely, given his increasing prominence on emergent sixth-generation consoles. Rayman Rush remains a fascinating oddity; a platformer-racer hybrid that was afforded so little fanfare, even the Rayman-dedicated RayWiki dismissed it as a “poor conversion”1 of party game Rayman M. Perhaps it appears this way, working backwards from stronger hardware. As a PlayStation title however, it is in fact rather more than this tepid appraisal suggests. Sure, it’s not up with leading party-karters like Speed Freaks or Crash Team Racing, and nor does it trouble the top-tier 3D platformers the format was so well-catered for, but it’s a good slice of fun.
Consisting of 12 levels (circuits?), Rayman Rush smartly reworks the party format into individual, on-foot race events. Far from being a half-baked port, it lifts certain functions from M’s party modes, such as the ability to halt your opponent by firing lums at them, and draws them together in a cohesive setting. Each level offers up four event variants. There’s Championship, which is a basic one-vs-one race to the finish against the A.I. Then you have Time Attack, new to this version, is a single lap challenge against the clock. Lums is perhaps the trickiest, as this mode sees you having to accumulate a number of golden collectables scattered about the layouts, and also beat a competitor to the finish line. Target, meanwhile, is a pleasant endeavour that sets you a fairly gentle time limit over three laps, with the aim being to shoot a number of blue butterflies. Here, you’re encouraged to explore the many alternative routes the courses house.
Consisting of 12 levels (circuits?), Rayman Rush smartly reworks the party format into individual, on-foot race events. Far from being a half-baked port, it lifts certain functions from M’s party modes, such as the ability to halt your opponent by firing lums at them, and draws them together in a cohesive setting. Each level offers up four event variants. There’s Championship, which is a basic one-vs-one race to the finish against the A.I. Then you have Time Attack, new to this version, is a single lap challenge against the clock. Lums is perhaps the trickiest, as this mode sees you having to accumulate a number of golden collectables scattered about the layouts, and also beat a competitor to the finish line. Target, meanwhile, is a pleasant endeavour that sets you a fairly gentle time limit over three laps, with the aim being to shoot a number of blue butterflies. Here, you’re encouraged to explore the many alternative routes the courses house.
Four race modes encourage players to explore every inch of the twelve levels
It follows the viewpoint of a typical third-person 3D platformer. The camera sits behind the character for the most part, though there’s also some nice side-on sequences that fit the bill nicely, playing a little bit like Crash Bandicoot’s bonus stages. Both player and computer can fire lums to slow each other’s progress, and this ability can also be utilised to activate switches. Some are helpful to your cause, like making bounce pads appear so as to speed up climbing sections. Others can be used to sabotage an opponent, such as reversing speed strips or removing platforms.
A number of additional elements mean there’s much more to Rayman Rush than simply pushing the analogue stick and occasionally jabbing the jump button. As well as high-risk, high-reward alternative routes, there are swing ropes which, if timed properly, can see your character eat up sections of course. There’s also a number of obstacle-dodging slide sections, a jump and hover combination that requires good timing and a fair bit of practice to master, whilst a smartly timed tap of triangle when landing will grant your character a handy little boost.
A number of additional elements mean there’s much more to Rayman Rush than simply pushing the analogue stick and occasionally jabbing the jump button. As well as high-risk, high-reward alternative routes, there are swing ropes which, if timed properly, can see your character eat up sections of course. There’s also a number of obstacle-dodging slide sections, a jump and hover combination that requires good timing and a fair bit of practice to master, whilst a smartly timed tap of triangle when landing will grant your character a handy little boost.
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As a result of all this, the courses feel action-packed, even if a typical lap-times range between forty seconds and a minute. 12 levels seems neither excessively generous, nor especially stingy. Rayman Rush could have been longer, no doubt, but with 48 stars available and a smartly meted progression/rewards system, Ubi-Soft Shanghai managed to coax a reasonable amount of longevity from the idea. Whilst the game has a number of additional characters to unlock, too many are lazy palette swaps, which is disappointing, even if it isn’t especially unusual. Replayability is encouraged by the different disciplines, with the Championship events proving perhaps the trickiest to conquer, whilst the other three are unlikely to cause to much too much of a hassle.
The build isn’t perfect. RR suffers from noticeable pop-up on some courses, whilst characters are prone to getting snagged on scenery. However, one of the benefits of having such a broad base of themes to the levels (many of which inspired by Rayman 2’s locales), is that there’s a little bit of everything here. Serene, bright beach settings showcase attractive rainbow effects and waterfalls. Spooky prison ships, ominous lava factories and creepy forest canopies ensure that all ends of the colour spectrum are catered for. Character animations are fairly decent, and the menus are well-presented.
The build isn’t perfect. RR suffers from noticeable pop-up on some courses, whilst characters are prone to getting snagged on scenery. However, one of the benefits of having such a broad base of themes to the levels (many of which inspired by Rayman 2’s locales), is that there’s a little bit of everything here. Serene, bright beach settings showcase attractive rainbow effects and waterfalls. Spooky prison ships, ominous lava factories and creepy forest canopies ensure that all ends of the colour spectrum are catered for. Character animations are fairly decent, and the menus are well-presented.
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You'll have to utilise all your platforming nous to conquer the twelve levels
It’s Rayman, so the audio side is a bit of a mixed bag. The soundtrack is acceptable, adding a burst of fun and urgency to the racing, even though it probably doesn’t stand up to extended listening. There’s some rather strange, tinny voice (or perhaps more accurately, “grunt”) samples, whilst the sound effects, particularly the freeze-beam and the speed-boosts, can be absolutely, ear-meltingly awful.
Was it technical restraints that limited the races to one opponent, rather than the three you compete against in Rayman M’s versions of the races? I suspect it might have been. However, you have to give credit to Ubi-Soft’s Shanghai studio, because the game feels less like a stripped-down product, and more a pragmatic remodelling. By reworking a few of the more disparate party ideas into a more compact, cohesive, racing-related whole, Rayman Rush offers a fun platformer-racer with more to it than meets the eye.
Was it technical restraints that limited the races to one opponent, rather than the three you compete against in Rayman M’s versions of the races? I suspect it might have been. However, you have to give credit to Ubi-Soft’s Shanghai studio, because the game feels less like a stripped-down product, and more a pragmatic remodelling. By reworking a few of the more disparate party ideas into a more compact, cohesive, racing-related whole, Rayman Rush offers a fun platformer-racer with more to it than meets the eye.
1 “Rayman Rush – RayWiki, The Rayman Wiki”. RayWiki, the Rayman Encylopedia, via archive.org. Edited 23rd January 2019.
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VERDICT
"By reworking a few disparate party ideas into a more compact, cohesive, racing-related whole, Rayman Rush offers a fun platformer-racer with more to it than meets the eye." OVERALL: 7/10 |