Rabbids Go Home Preview [Wii]

15 Oct 2009 at 14:00:45 by John Robertson

Rabbids Go Home is a different proposition than we've seen from the series in recent years. The mini-game setup that has prevailed in years past as the Raving Rabbids series has been completely scrapped, replaced by something more recognisable as a single player game with a ‘story-driven' campaign mode. In terms of the big picture, the shift in focus is probably a good thing: the titles themselves never really managed to propel the series to the tip of their particular - over-saturated - sector of the Wii's gaming catalogue.

Despite the shift in focus, the Raving Rabbids themselves return in full force, unchanged from what we've seen before - i.e. super-deformed rabbits whose characters tend to hinge on the crazy side of normality, constantly acting as though under the influence of a significant quantity of stimulants. The premise of the game is that you and your gang of Rabbids have decided that it's time to pack their bags and return home. Home is, however, on the moon. They logically come to the conclusion that the only way they're going to be able to return is by constructing a tower between it and Earth for them to climb. Just quite what makes up the specifics elements of the whole situation is unbeknownst to us, but we're sure it's something approaching Shakespearean brilliance.

Gameplay consists of running around levels of various settings at a frantic pace, shopping trolley in tow, crashing into stuff that you can use in tower construction. Anything will do apparently, including hamburgers, furniture and, bizarrely, the clothes off of people's backs. Smashing into humans strips them of their clothes and adds them to your collection of tower swag. Just quite how such items would aid construction is beyond me but who am I to question the logic of a Rabbid? The ability to strip people down to their underwear, judging by how excited the person showing the game to us was about it, seems to be one of the game's defining features, so those who have been holding their breath for such a thing can exhale now.

Everything moves at a furious pace, your Rabbid pushing his/her trolley through levels with the speed and skill of an F1 racer. Levels, at least during the course of the two we saw, are constantly providing you with objects to collect, traps to avoid and people to strip down, the emphasis being on speed and craziness rather than searching and thinking. You could probably liken the speed and flow of the game to something approaching a combination between Sonic games of old and the Katamari series, only far less taxing on the mind and much more childlike, appealing to an audience that like their games to be ‘accessible' - i.e. incredibly easy-going and something your Gran could at least pretend she's enjoying.

Of the 15 different environments (split into 40 levels) we're told make up the game, we saw one set in a supermarket and one within an airport. It was the airport that left the bigger impression, giving you control over a huge jet engine strapped to your comparatively diminutive shopping trolley. The core gameplay of flying around collecting everything in sight was exactly the same, but it was more fun under the power of a multi-tonne jet engine.

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