Raving Rabbids: Travel in Time Review

One of my favorite launch titles on the Wii four years ago was Rayman Raving Rabbids. It was a unique, comedic experience that mixed motion controls with fun mini-games. Fast forward to 2010 and all it seems that gets released on the Wii are motion control mini-games. The novelty has worn off.

The developers have decided to dump the Rayman name from the franchise altogether. Now you are just a group of crazy rabbits (known as “rabbids”) that travel through time using a washing machine time machine. The revisionist history puts the blame on the rabbids for the crashing of the Titanic and other world events. You will travel back to ancient Egypt, the times of the Renaissance in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Italy, etc.

The game takes place in a museum where you choose the types of mini-game based on the section of the museum that you are in. The Flyarium has flying mini-games and the Shootarium has shooting mini-games. The game will give you instructions for each mini-game using reverse psychology, so you will want to do the opposite of what they tell you. If you decide to play multi-player, getting to play can be frustrating since your characters are literally tethered to each other until the mini-game starts.

The system for choosing games seems kind of odd, since there really are not any menus or modes, but rather literally is a collection of mini-games. This makes it impossible to recommend for people looking to play single-player, since there really is not a single-player to speak of. Sure, you can play the mini-games with and against computer players, but there is no story-driven gameplay.

The assortment of mini-games is relatively robust, which is something you would expect from a game so heavily reliant on them. Whether you like racing, shooting, flying, etc., there will be something for everyone. My personal favorite is a flying mini-game where you use the Wii Remote and nunchuk to simulate wings. They even calibrate your controllers to optimize the accuracy. You fly around attempting to break each other’s balloons that trail behind your plane.

For those that like mini-game multi-player, Raving Rabbids: Travel in Time is a worthy investment. This is a game that is good for parties (preferably involving alcohol) and kids to play with their friends. The comedic value alone is a welcome departure from most other games these days. Still, it is a collection of mini-games on a system that has far too many of these types of games already.