Rayman Arena

"Rayman and Racing Don't Mix"

Rayman Arena is not like any of the other Rayman games available. This game is a completely different style to the half decent platformer titles. Imagine Rayman and friends in a racing title, then you have Rayman Arena. It is not as good as other cartoon like racing games such as Crash Team Racing, but is a fairly good attempt nonetheless.

From the start of the game you get to pick from several characters: Rayman, Globox, Razor Beard, Henchman 800 and the Teensies. There are two main modes in Rayman Arena: Race mode and Battle Mode. The race mode isn't too bad, but is far from excellent. Within the race mode there are three mode types: Race, which is just a basic 4 way race, where you shoot and jump over obstacles to find shortcuts, with some enemies to slow you down. Popolopoi mode sees you shooting blue butterflies over three laps of the course in order to keep the time limit up. This can get a bit tedious and repetitive, and usually just involves going through all the shortcuts in the level. The Lums mode is the worst racing mode however. You must collect lums spread throughout each level, while beating the computer opponent in a one on one race. The Battle mode is slightly better than race mode, but still very poor. As with the racing, there are three battle modes. Lum Spring pits you against an opponent, and you must collect Lums as they appear randomly in the arena. You have 5 freeze bullets each that can be used to slow the enemy down, and regenerate over time. The first to so many lums wins. Lum fight is a one on one battle against a computer enemy, with many weapons at your disposal. You can collect a weapon then use it to remove five hit points from each other. When your hit points are at zero, you give one point to your enemy. Capture the fly is a king of the hill style game. You must race against the opponent to get the fly and keep it for as long as possible until or the time runs out.

The graphics on Rayman Arena are only as good as PS1 games. On the other hand the scenery is fairly well done. The graphics could have been improved upon a lot, but are standard as far as Rayman games go. The sound is done well, and compliments the game greatly.

Rayman Arena has a fair amount of replay value behind it, but is still short lived. There are plenty of levels to unlock for each of the 6 modes, and multiplayer mode will keep people happy for a few days.

With the length of this game, it is only worth renting over the weekend with a couple of friends. This game proves that racing and Rayman do not mix. I doubt we will see another one of these type of games with Rayman in the near future.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/11/03, Updated 07/11/03