Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Rayman Arena

Written by Matt Partington on September 24, 2002

Full Review: Our limbless friend returns again.

Too bad. It's too bad that a series could go from near-perfection to practically selling out in a whored-out mess. Rayman 2 was at one point the best platform game on the PS2. Rayman Arena isn't an entirely bad game, but I'll tell you that coming from such a renowned, respected franchise it turns out to be one of the most dissatisfying titles on the PS2. Rayman Arena is taking steps in the right direction, but somewhere somehow it veered off way too far and resulted in an utterly boring game.

It seems that Rayman Arena was made with good intentions, but the game alone just didn't have the potential in the first place. There was obviously an amount of thought put into it, as well as time and money--this really may not be Ubi Soft selling out at all. Still, like mentioned before, Rayman Arena is altogether boring. It's separated in two parts, Race Arena and Battle Arena. Race Arena is where you run on foot against one or a series of opponents in attempt to finish first (duh). No, not much of an original concept at all. Furthermore, Race Arena consists of four different, individual modes. First is Training Mode, a basic exercise of running through the level as many times as desired. Race Mode is just what the name suggest, but Popolopoi is a bit different where you try to complete 3 laps within 20 seconds. Lums Mode gives you the simple task of finishing 3 laps while collecting a maximum amount of Lums.

Aside from that there's Battle Arena, which traditionally consist of fetch-and-retrieve competition in which you race to grab a particular Lum while attacking your opponent with a blast ray (several weapons of use). Of course, there's different ways to collect Lums in separate game modes. Lum Spring is a basic battle of darting to a spawned Lum and grabbing it before the opposition can of which I described a moment ago. Lum Fight is weapon combat geared towards eliminating your enemy while being respawned. Lastly is Capture the Fly, a King of the Hill game in the simplest sense. You try to grab a Light-Fly for the longest amount of time before the clock runs down. Get it? Got it? Good.

Alone as a single-player game, Rayman Arena becomes tedious, boring, and redundant. You're not rewarded in any sort of way except to ride of the ladder of difficulty leagues. Nevertheless, RA has a multi-player package that nearly, but not quite, saves the day for the moment. With four people, Rayman Arena deals an entertaining contest against your buddies instead of computer-controlled AI. That is, until the multi-player aspect gains the same feeling as the single-player mode. At some point or another, even the most amusing matches versus your friends will turn into a dull, dry, tiring experience. But the fun is good while it lasts. Unfortunately that's not nearly long enough.

The level design of Rayman Arena sticks out with success possibly more than any part of the game. There's a total of 30 levels, battle and racetracks combined. It's all classic Rayman style, with genuine obstacles that we've come to know and love. Furthermore, there's special little shortcuts in each of the track levels. For instance, you can shoot your blast ray into a high hanging ring of which you'll become connected to and be able to swing in front of the opposition with ease. About two or three laps in through a racecourse it's going to become very repetitive, and you'll find yourself taking near-exact steps over and over again.

The battle arenas mainly dwell in generic shrubbery and obstructions. Nothing to be all that pleased about, but certain levels do stand out over the rest (ranging from unique to pretty darn crappy). Simply, there isn't enough to do. The arenas become equally as relentless as most aspects of the game.

But how does Rayman Arena perform graphically you ask? Typically. It seems to run off (or is on par with) the same engine as Rayman 2, but the visuals are a bit outdated by today's PS2 standards. They remain fairly consistent, with cutscenes taking place here and there. Most of the objects, including the characters, are blocky, but not disgustingly blocky. Nor are the graphics very jaggy. They're somewhat above average, but below what you might expect.

RA has glitches that we could get into, but there's only a few that are mentionable such as when you suddenly get stuck on a corner or edge, or even a wall. Not eternally stuck, but until you jump which can be a pretty long time in retrospect for a race. Arena honestly could've been more of a game, maybe not a spectacular game, but more of one indeed. Rayman 3 looks to be promising, maybe even better than Rayman 2. But that's not till Spring 2003, unfortunately.