LO4 - Review

Rayman Adventures - Review

Rayman, an unusual creature who has no arms, legs or neck, however what he lacks in limbs and structural support for his head, he makes up for in long jumps, punches and swift attacks, all of which are explored in the new Rayman Adventures. Rayman Adventures is a 2D side-scroller platformer game, which adds to the iconic Rayman franchise. Quite swiftly, the game begins with a cut scene, which shows several Lividstones, the baddies of the Rayman world, on a flying ship stealing all of the Ancient Eggs that sustain the Scared Tree. The player then has a choice, after one of the eggs falls down and lands on either, the infamous Rayman or Barbara, a character who is young and funny yet hot-headed and comes fully-equipped with an axe. The player is given the opportunity choose one of the characters to begin playing with, this is the first of many choices and chances of interactivity in which the player receives within the game, which, for me, added to the experience and kept me interested, instead of having to sit through multiple cut-scenes waiting for them to pass. The game then allows the character, in which the player chose, to chase down the egg until they finally catch it, after catching the egg, it hatches, revealing a creature who later explains what has just happened. The main character goes on to then meet ‘The Captain’ who helps them out on their quest to save all the eggs. The story-line is pretty simple, which is usually expected of a free game, compared to a game in which you could pay £40 for and have a more complex narrative, often with a plot twist. However, the graphics within the game did exceed my expectations, I was anticipating graphics which were basic enough to allow for an interesting game-play, despite this, from the offset, the graphics, including the cut-scenes, were very impressive, and that of what you would expect of a game which you would pay for, the scenery is well thought out and gives depth to the game in order to bring a certain sense of reality to an animated game.

There are also many worlds throughout the game, including Medieval Mayhem, Olympus Maximus, Sea of Serendipity, Toad Story and Wild, Wild East, these are mostly based on the worlds from Rayman Legends, however upon first downloading the game, you learn the basic controls, select your character and encounter a number of cut-scenes which introduce the narrative. Although, before you can begin a game within a world you must download extra content to access that particular world and the levels it holds. This extra download can be either very quick or very slow, depending on your internet connection as the game requires internet in order to be played, even though you have to download extra content, rather than it already being within the game when its first downloaded, it does have its advantages as it reduces the size of the app, leaving you with more space on your device, which, in this day and age, we all so desperately need.

Rayman Adventures is a basic running game, however does have its differences from other popular games that have previously been released by Ubisoft including Jungle Run and Fiesta Run, as this game allows the player to change the direction they are running in. Whilst being able to run in different directions, the main character also never stops running throughout the gameplay in each level, this can make you feel a bit flustered and may mean you have to keep running at a wall for a while whilst you figure out where you need to go to complete the goals, which you are set are the beginning of each level, this can range from collecting creatures, coins or setting creatures free. The main goal to the game is to rescue the small roundish creatures known as the Incrediballs, in which there are 158 to be earned throughout the game, once these have been rescued they can help the hero throughout the game, as they can assist the main character by protecting them or collecting a bunch of Lums, which are an important source of magical energy, however these can only be used three at a time. The game is divided up into adventures which contains 3-4 levels each and cannot be revisited once the player has left the Adventure Map. However, there are a range of 4 types of levels: Exploration levels, Lum Lum levels, Brawl levels and Time challenges, each adventure has a harder optional level with a skull on the icon, but if you’re talented enough to complete the level it will give to twice as many rewards as the normal levels.

When playing each level, it is very quick paced whilst it keeps you on your toes it doesn’t give you much time to ensure you have gotten the most out of the level. Interactivity is also key throughout the game whilst needing the user to tap on things to open them throughout the small clips which help develop the story-line. To control the character you have chosen, you simply familiarise yourself with basic controls, including swiping to change direction and to attack, and tapping to jump, despite this, ease of use of these controls highly depends on the device which the game is played on, which may vary for each user as the game is available for both iOS and Android, for example, if the device has a small screen, you may find it difficult to hold the phone landscape whilst trying to perform the controls on the screen in order to control the character.

There is a part of the game in which an egg is held in an incubator, see the egg has to be in the incubator for 10 minutes, the user is given the option to either wait, halting their gameplay, or they can choose to pay with diamonds to speed up the process, for every minute there is left, a diamond can be paid, for example once the timer gets to 8 minutes the cost of diamonds goes down to 8. If the user uses all of their diamonds and can no longer speed up this process, they can make in-app purchase in order to buy more, to ensure their gameplay is as swift as possible, other in-app purchases are also available in order to quicken gameplay and satisfy the short patience of some players. When it comes to selecting a level, I felt as though it was more confusing than it needed to be, with another menu that contains your collected Incrediballs that looks rather like a level selector you are always forced to remember you have to go back to the Adventure Map in order to select a level to play the game.

Overall, Rayman Adventures lacks a few things, one in which is originality, I had many high hopes for this game when it burst onto my screen with impressive graphics and bright colours, but when it comes down to it, the player’s actions/controls are rather limited and ultimately quite dull. As well as this, bugs tend to be an issue for the game, whist myself encountering a number of crashes whilst trying to access certain parts of the game, including creating a gamer profile. Upon extra research I found that this is a common problem for others too, the only way in which to access the game again is to close it completely and reboot it. For a quick and easy game to play with little commitment, for example on your lunch or whilst on a train journey, this game would be appropriate and most likely satisfy the gamer, however with little depth and short play-through’s which offer little chance for you to catch your breath, the game may be disappointing for many, especially those, like myself, who have played through the Rayman franchise for many years.