So, let’s say you happen to have no arms but you have hands. Or that you have
feet, but no legs. As a matter of fact you don’t have a neck either. Personally
I’d be a little bummed. But a little dude by the name of Rayman has achieved
more without the use of limbs than many videogame heroes that come stocked with
a full set of stems. He’s done so well in fact that he is now on his third
outing (fourth if you really feel like counting Rayman Arena, which I would not
advise). But is he like a fine wine getting better with age, or should he start
looking for gigs in a freak-show circus? The answers lie ahead...
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| Just another walk in the woods for Rayman. |
As I mentioned, and as the title implies, Rayman 3 is the third release in the
Rayman series. It is your traditional platformer along the lines of a Mario or
Crash. Just like the games in both of those series, Rayman has a style that is
easily recognizable. A lot of that style is from the main man himself. You see
Rayman does not have any arm, legs or a neck. He does have hands and feet
however. Now before the women and children go screaming out of the room thinking
he must be some type of horror movie reject, let me tell you that what he lacks
in limbs he more than makes up for in a funny personality. This is another
staple of the Rayman series; its ability not only to make fun of itself, but
also of the video game industry itself. Rayman has also created a nice
reputation for itself for having some of the best drop-dead graphics of any game
around and I’ll cover this a little later. But first the story...
Our story starts quickly enough when one of Rayman’s sidekicks, Globox, ends up
swallowing the Dark Lum Lord, Andre. Lums are the bad guys of this world and
they look a little like small black fleas. (By the way, you happen to throw a
hood on one of them and what do you get? A Hoodlum…) As you could imagine the
Lum lord is none to happy to be in the belly of Globox and he’s trying very hard
to get out. This of course is something Globox wants also, but in a humane and
reasonable way. It’s up to Rayman to help out his friend and so he starts
globetrotting to find the cure for one serious case of indigestion.
If you’ve ever played a platformer then you already mostly know what Rayman is
about. It’s not bringing anything new to the table; it’s just trying to prepare
the same things in a slightly different way. There are many different levels and
most of them are really colorful and nice to look at. The graphics in Rayman 3
are solidly done, even if the PS2 version may be a little lacking when compared
to the XBox or GameCube versions. I found the levels pretty imaginative with one
of the more entertaining parts being the way Ray travels from one major level to
another. It’s done in a wonderfully psychedelic stream of rail riding and pretty
cool music. Actually the colors and background graphics are so bright and trippy
that they often take your eyes away from the next jump you should be
concentrating on.
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